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Portuguese gov't denies responsibility for alleged VIP list shielding tax payers

Xinhua, April 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said a list shielding prominent figures from paying tax was "serious" on Wednesday, but denied that the government bared any responsibility.

"The government did not give any instruction, orientation or any kind of comfort to contribute to this type of procedure," Passos Coelho said in response to the leader of the Communist Party, Jeronimo de Sousa, during a quarterly debate at parliament on Wednesday.

Passos Coelho added that the government could not take political responsibility for "something that did not depend on its instruction."

Passos Coelho recently denied the government's involvement in the alleged VIP list which shielded prominent figures from paying tax. But Portugal's National Data Protection Commission on Tuesday confirmed the list existed.

The VIP list includes the names of the Portuguese president, the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the secretary of state for fiscal affairs, according to local media reports.

The government is now awaiting the results of an investigation by the Inspectorate-General of Finance to determine who is responsible for applying the list.

Passos Coelho promised to take the investigation as far as possible during the debate on Wednesday, adding that when the report is released the government will "not hesitate to take action" to determine "other procedures that could be running to safeguard the protection of this data."

Last month, the head of Portugal's Tax and Customs Authority resigned over the allegations, which caused further damaged scrutiny surrounding Passos Coelho over allegations that he hadn't paid his social security contributions for a period of five years, though he later said he hadn't been aware of his duty to pay.

Passos Coelho's center-right government has been applying harsh tax hikes and spending cuts to meet the country's 78 billion euro (about 84 billion U.S. dollars) bailout which the country ended in May last year. Endit