Lisbon, June 27, 2025 (Lusa) - Parliament approved the government’s request on Friday for urgent consideration of the draft law on personal income tax; all parties voted in favour except PCP, which chose to abstain.
However, before the vote, the PSD’s parliamentary leader, Hugo Soares, asked for the content of the request to be amended so that it scheduled separate votes on the general, specific and final overall aspects for next Friday, as the government had initially requested.
Portugal’s minister of parliamentary affairs, Carlos Abreu Amorim, who was present in the plenary session, supported this oral request for amendment.
Under the new terms, which only request urgent consideration of the proposal, the parliament approved the government’s request with only the PCP abstaining.
The initial text requested that the vote on the draft law take place “simultaneously in the three phases, general, specific and final overall vote”, but this was not included in the alteration.
Parliament has scheduled the discussion and vote on the general provisions of the bill, which amends the Personal Income Tax Code, for next Friday, 4 July.
In practice, parliament’s approval of the request for urgency will shorten the procedural deadlines, allowing the bill to be put to a final vote as soon as possible.
The last plenary session before the parliamentary recess will be on 18 July.
Parliament received the bill on Wednesday, which provides for an additional reduction in personal income tax of €500 million this year. The reduction is 0.5 percentage points between the first and third brackets, 0.6 percentage points between the fourth and sixth brackets, and 0.4 percentage points in the seventh and eighth brackets.
“The government will approve new withholding tax tables to reflect the reduction in income tax rates, with retroactive effect from January,” the government said in a statement from the cabinet that approved the bill.
Today, the weekly newspaper Expresso reported that the government plans to implement the €500 million reduction at the beginning of August.
SMA/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
