The document, published by the Economics Affairs and Finance and Taxation general directorates said that Portugal (along with Ireland, Croatia and Slovenia) had a “high risk” of sustainability in the medium term and needed to act, and one of the possible paths included raising taxes, but not on labour so as not to hurt the recovery.
According to an analysis made by the Commission, the member states that have relatively low taxes, a group including Portugal, could resort to increasing “less distortive” taxes in terms of the market or “more growth friendly” such as taxes on consumption or environmental taxes to stand up to the risks of the sustainability of the public coffers