Availability of Tax Benefits on the Mais Transparência Portal (PT0021)

Brief Description of the Commitment

Availability on the Mais Transparência Portal of all information regarding support granted under the Tax Benefits Statute (EBF), approved as an annex to Decree-Law No. 215/89, of July 1, in accordance with Law No. 82 /2023 (Article 214)

Problem Definition

1. What problem does the commitment aim to address? The Mais Transparência Portal is a platform that allows citizens to consult the information provided by the State in a more accessible way, reinforcing their relationship of trust with the Public Administration. More than just accountability, transparency is also one of the pillars of citizenship. The Mais Transparência Portal was launched in April 2021 with the commitment to share and disseminate information in a clear and intelligible way with civil society, facilitating their participation in topics that concern everyone on a daily basis and promoting citizens, greater transparency. This platform was designed to evolve and grow with new areas and more information progressively, following an iterative and incremental development approach and covering a wide range of thematic areas of the relationship between citizens and the State at its different levels. This commitment makes it possible to share and disseminate administrative and fiscal information in a clear and intelligible way with civil society, facilitating their participation in issues that concern everyone on a daily basis and promoting greater administrative and fiscal transparency to citizens.

2. What are the causes of the problem? The lack of public information regarding tax benefits and the non-existence of an online space “Tax Benefits Area” with systematically updated information made available to citizens in accessible language regarding tax expenditure.

Description of the Commitment

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem? Due to the lack of a channel available to citizens with public information and language accessible to citizens about tax benefits, Law No. 82/2023, which approves the state budget for 2024, introduced the creation and availability of a thematic area on support granted under the Tax Benefits Statute (EBF) until the end of 2024 on the Mais Transparência Portal. The content relating to beneficiaries of tax benefits is now available on the Finance Portal. Making it available on the Mais Transparência Portal will increase the reach of the information.

2. What solution are you proposing? Provision of information on tax expenditure on the Mais Transparência Portal. Namely, the creation of a new area “Tax Benefits” with information that is systematically updated and made available to citizens in accessible language.

3. What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment? Providing information on tax expenditure is a measure that benefits citizens, the government and society as a whole. Some of the most important benefits of transparency over fiscal spending include strengthening accountability, legitimacy, integrity, inclusiveness and quality of administrative and fiscal decisions, which could ultimately build trust between governments and citizens.

Commitment Planning (Milestones | Expected completion date)

Definition of content, information architecture, prototype and dataset in dados.gov | August 2024

Development and acceptance testing | November 2024

Production availability | December 2024

Increase the availability of available information | December 2027

Action Plan Review

Commitment 4 focuses on making information about tax benefits publicly available and accessible on the transparency portal, “Mais Transparência,” including public disclosure about the recipients of tax benefits in Portugal. [62] While civil society representatives consider this information important, the law already requires publication of this information on the transparency portal and the Commitment does not provide for access to new information. [63] The information to be disclosed is already required by the Portuguese Tax Benefits Code. [64] To further the commitment’s objective, stakeholders could design new milestones, collecting and integrating citizen feedback on the information made available through Mais Transparência. To support participatory decision making in fiscal policy, this could also include dialogue about the kinds of tax benefits and expenditures the state is granting, and why.