The minister is to be heard by the budget finances and administrative modernisation committee and the committee on employment and social security following the submission of a revised version of the budget to parliament late last week.
The session came as it emerged that a parliamentary watchdog has said that revenue and spending measures added to the budget draft in the past two weeks “prompt doubts about their reasonableness,” citing some receipts for which “it is not possible to identify the factors that might have underlined their revision.”
According to the report attached to the budget the deficit is to fall from 4.3 percent of GDP last year to 2.2 percent in 2016, representing a narrowing of 0.9 of a percentage point from the 2015 deficit without the impact of the resolution of Banif bank.
Among the main measures foreseen in the final plan are the gradual restoration of salaries in the public sector and the reduction of the surcharge on income tax, as means of returning to households some of the spending power they lost during the period in which Portugal sought a euro-zone bailout and had to enact austerity policies as a result.
However, the budget also foresees increases in indirect taxes such as car tax, the tax on petroleum products, and the tobacco and alcoholic drinks taxes.
Where direct taxes are concerned, the government is replacing income tax deductions indexed to the number of children a family has and replacing them with a flat benefit of €550 per child and €525 per senior citizen living in the household with an income of less than the bare minimum.
The main rate of corporate income tax is to remain 21 percent this year, and the period in which losses may be written off for tax purposes is to be reduced to five from 12 years.