| > Just income tax is capped at 20%. But why is it capped? Are they refugees? Do they need help? Do they have families? The income tax law is clear, we have progressive taxes. From each according to its ability. The party that proposed flat taxes ammended it's program to remove it when it would result on a tax increase on workers earning less than 1000€. It's immoral and violates the constitution. > It's not limited to "expats" or "wealthy" or "immigrants" or "non-immigrants" some limited class of people. > And besides, again, they have paid already more in absolute terms, than an average citizen. It's both an incentive and they pay more, a magical elastic number, both high and low. Can a Uber driver claim that? Or a guy delivering food for Uber Eats? Or a dude working on a grocery store? Because those immigrants are already here, contributing to the economy even when treated like criminals, some have their families even. They don't get any tax breaks because they barely pay income tax, their wages are not high enough (bit still better than their native countries). This is embedded on the proposal, it's for relatively rich people only, because it affects income tax. I don't see any justification other than tautology "it's legal because the government decreed it". I'm not contesting the legality, just show the receipts. This was implemented before, and it only increased the housing prices. > Anyone with a profession in demand could have gotten the status. And work for a foreign company, interacting professionally with zero natives? How does this improve the local economy? Unless their jobs are barista, barman, chef. I could even accept getting tax breaks for opening a company employing humans, even though it is unfair to existing companies. But it's not even that, it's tax breaks for living in a resort. > I don't know historically why this has been decided I do: a minority government flush with cash from the previous government (another faction of neoliberals) will be voted out at the end of the year, so they are pissing away that money to remain in power. There's no time to evaluate the proposals, they just repeat what was done before and reverted for good reasons. There's no population outflow, we have positive net migration.
The outflow was during the austerity years, that's why there are less doctors, nurses. The aging population cannot afford medicine, they are not leaving either. These kind of policies drive the young people away, why subsidise some rich expat to live in my own country? It's better to move to a high CoL area, pay more taxes, but earn much more money anyway. Why don't these countries implement NHR schemes too, don't they want those coveted high earners. > Who's going to pay the taxes needed to sustain aging population? Not the expats, if they have tax breaks. They will cost money! |
Likely could've worked if - they had to pay to access health care and other benefits, plus they could only live inwards in places where the population is decreasing like Castelo Branco etc. And if the distortions in the real estate market became too big in any particular place, they would be banned from that district. That would cut down on work-tourist types who just come for the beach and sun, and it would contribute to actual de-desertification of the interior of the country.