By Andrea Hargraves 
The president of the Lisbon Owners Association (ALP), Luis Menezes Leitao, stressed that “it was necessary to adopt this measure, and the association has been saying so since the tax was imposed.”
The Liberal Initiative (IL) wants to abolish the Additional Municipal Property Tax (AIMI), also known as the mortgage tax, and tenant and landlord associations have admitted to the Jornal Económico (JE) newspaper that they are satisfied with the proposal submitted to Parliament.
“Being another tax on rental property, it has an impact on income. From this point of view, one can question the existence of this tax,” said the Secretary General of the Association of Lisbon Tenants (AIL), Antonio Machado, adding that the association welcomes “Repeal” the tax proposed by IL.
In turn, the head of the Landlords Association in Lisbon, Luis Menezes Leitao, confirmed that “it was necessary to adopt this measure, and the association has been saying this since the tax was imposed.”
In the project, IL noted that “AIMI was created in 2016, within the scope of the 2017 state budget, based on the proposal of the Bloco de Esquerda, announced by the current coordinator Mariana Mortagua, and as a result of negotiations with the Socialist Party for this budget.”
The additional IMI applies “to urban residential buildings, individually or together with other owner-owned buildings, with a value exceeding 600 thousand euros and with revenues partially allocated to the social security system.”
“It is a tax that only exists for ideological reasons, the words the MP used at the time: We have to get rid of the shame of asking for money from those who are accumulating it when it is clear that people who are renting with enormous effort have, many times, had their rents frozen,” the ALP leader highlighted.
According to Luis Menezes Leitao, “This tax only applies to residential buildings and was created for political and ideological reasons as part of a countermeasure to allow the government to pass this contraption.”
“The reality is that what's happening now is that as a result of this existing tax, people are not investing in residential buildings and investing in commercial buildings. The leader explained to the ALP that commercial buildings do not pay this tax, which is unfair.
Luis Menezes Leitao also stressed that “we have buildings with frozen rents that have to pay mortgage tax, and we have commercial buildings of great value, such as bank headquarters or hotels that pay nothing at all.”
For the Liberals, “the mortgage tax was nothing more than a form of attack on private property, as it imposed a progressive tax on real estate, distorting its purpose of financing municipalities and causing a betrayal of trust by builders and owners. Effects on the construction market.” For rent and therefore to the owners.
“In addition, it is also important to point out that the mortgage tax nowadays, in addition to being imposed on property owners who in the past would have been considered wealthy in the concept of the left and left parliamentary bloc at that time, and the party led by Rui Rocha emphasized the imposition of Charges also apply to companies and people who make a significant contribution to long-term housing rentals.