The Left Block (BE) wants the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) to stop being competent to collect toll fees and fines on highways. The measure aims to end the use of public resources for the collection of debts from private entities, with BE arguing that the Tax Authorities have in recent years become a kind of “toll collector” for highway concessionaires ”.
In a bill submitted to the Assembly of the Republic, BE maintains that changes to the sanctioning regime applicable to transgressions in road infrastructures where payment of toll fees are due allowed the Tax Authorities to “collect tolls as if they were taxes”, which “It generated a chaotic situation, aggravated, at the time, by the new way of paying tolls in the old SCUTs”.
“Thousands of people began to be notified by the Tax Authority to pay tolls, fines, costs and related interest; (…) Starting to use their resources and workers in debt recovery to these private individuals, earning them tens of millions of euros at the expense of investing their resources in other objectives of public interest ”, warn the blockers in the document.
Although in 2015 an exceptional regime for settling debts of toll and interest rates and associated costs was approved, which caused the amounts of fines to drop slightly and payment terms to increase, the parliamentary group of BE notes that AT continued to have the power to “institute and instruct these processes for the benefit of private concessionaires”.
BE recalls, however, that, in an order signed by the director general of AT, it was determined that "the tax authorities do not represent highway concessionaires in court whenever users contest the executions". Some jurists contested, at the time, "the incongruity of toll collection by Finance" and "many affirmed the unconstitutionality of using TA to recover non-tax debts from private entities".
In view of the persistence of “just drivers' complaints” against the coercive collection of AT, BE considers that “it is urgent that the Government remove the responsibility of the Tax Authority for initiating and instructing the processes for failure to pay toll fees and proceeding to the its collection, ending with the use of public resources for charging to private individuals ”.
BE considers that the collection of tolls and fines on motorways should be carried out by police authorities and representatives of concessionaires or sub-concessionaires, with inspection functions, namely porters, with “the analysis of the defense, the elaboration of the proposal for a decision, notification of the administrative decision, as well as the preparation of the enforcement order ”.
The BE also suggests to the Government changes in the distribution of the fines: 20% for the State instead of the current 40%, 20% for Infrastructure in Portugal, 20% for the Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT) and 40% for concessionaires, sub-concessionaires, entities responsible for collecting tolls and entities that manage electronic toll collection systems.
The Left Block (BE) wants the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) to stop being competent to collect toll fees and fines on highways. The measure aims to end the use of public resources for the collection of debts from private entities, with BE arguing that the Tax Authorities have in recent years become a kind of “toll collector” for highway concessionaires ”.
In a bill submitted to the Assembly of the Republic, BE maintains that changes to the sanctioning regime applicable to transgressions in road infrastructures where payment of toll fees are due allowed the Tax Authorities to “collect tolls as if they were taxes”, which “It generated a chaotic situation, aggravated, at the time, by the new way of paying tolls in the old SCUTs”.
“Thousands of people began to be notified by the Tax Authority to pay tolls, fines, costs and related interest; (…) Starting to use their resources and workers in debt recovery to these private individuals, earning them tens of millions of euros at the expense of investing their resources in other objectives of public interest ”, warn the blockers in the document.
Although in 2015 an exceptional regime for settling debts of toll and interest rates and associated costs was approved, which caused the amounts of fines to drop slightly and payment terms to increase, the parliamentary group of BE notes that AT continued to have the power to “institute and instruct these processes for the benefit of private concessionaires”.
BE recalls, however, that, in an order signed by the director general of AT, it was determined that "the tax authorities do not represent highway concessionaires in court whenever users contest the executions". Some jurists contested, at the time, "the incongruity of toll collection by Finance" and "many affirmed the unconstitutionality of using TA to recover non-tax debts from private entities".
In view of the persistence of “just drivers' complaints” against the coercive collection of AT, BE considers that “it is urgent that the Government remove the responsibility of the Tax Authority for initiating and instructing the processes for failure to pay toll fees and proceeding to the its collection, ending with the use of public resources for charging to private individuals ”.
BE considers that the collection of tolls and fines on motorways should be carried out by police authorities and representatives of concessionaires or sub-concessionaires, with inspection functions, namely porters, with “the analysis of the defense, the elaboration of the proposal for a decision, notification of the administrative decision, as well as the preparation of the enforcement order ”.
The BE also suggests to the Government changes in the distribution of the fines: 20% for the State instead of the current 40%, 20% for Infrastructure in Portugal, 20% for the Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT) and 40% for concessionaires, sub-concessionaires, entities responsible for collecting tolls and entities that manage electronic toll collection systems.