Portugal killing itself
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 11:39 am
Portugal killing itself
Created on Thursday, 29 September 2011 21:55
Occassionally a reader's letter is published. The following missive crystalises many of the thoughts we have all had from time to time...
'It is impossible for Portugal to get out of this recession, the reason why is because you need the Portuguese people to do it, but they cannot, because their hands and feet are tied with so many silly rules and licenses.
There will be no new major Portuguese companies in the future because they will be strangled at birth, the Goverment burden them with so many rules and regulations and licenses, they just give up, and the sad thing is that there is no need for 90% of these rules and regulations, its just a way for the Goverment to get fines out of you, they don't seem to understand the big picture of the free market, only the petty fines of annoyance to the companies, then they finish for good.
You have 2 million Portuguese, 1/5th of the population, under medical treatment for depression and 85% of these are between the age 30-50, the time in life when you are trying so hard to get somewhere, children through school, buying a house, running a business, and the Goverment is resposible for this situation of destroying their own citizens' lives with so much no needed strangulation rules.
Example. Why do you need a license to advertise your business on your van at so much per word? You have thousands and thousands of company vans on the road and nobody knows what they do, not good for
business. Why also do you have to write out a list of what you carry in your van?
I see the police emptying out vans on the roadside checking these lists very often 4 vans at a time, each van is held up for 30 minutes.
So for the polices 6 hour shift stopping 4 vans at a time is a total of 24 hours lost work time, 3 days, for the van drivers, plus late deliveries, for the polices 6 hour shift. Not good for the economy, and for what reason other than annoying folks and getting fines? It cannot be for drugs or arms because a dog can sniff them out in seconds.
Also Portugals most important trade, tourism, they have totally wrecked, with new rules and licenses, holiday home owners are selling up and leaving Portugal for ever; 8000 British families in the past 12 months.
What the Goverment do not seem to understand is, that one British family just living here not even working puts more money into the economy than probably 20 portuguese families working. And the British family has relatives and friends coming to Portugal for holidays and bringing much needed fresh money to Portugal, and especially today in a recession thats what Portugal needs most, fresh money coming into the country.
Folks who buy holiday homes here or come to retire from another county should be given medals not burdened with all the silly rules and licenses the Goverment put on them just to scrounge a little money, and because of that they lose millions of fresh money to the economy.
One example on how much they are losing, one holiday company in the UK had 3600 private holiday villas and apartments on their books, and after the new rules the goverment brought out, the following year they had 249 left on their books, talk about shooting yourself in the foot, billions now lost since these rules came out.
Because of this Portugal, with the loss of tourisim income, was going downhill rapidly long before they had a chance to blame the banks. China had the same problems all through their communist years, impossible for the man on the street to succeed, and then they went into HongKong saw how happy and rich folks were, so they took a look at the Hongkong blueprint on how they succeeded and copied it all over China and throughout the world, and now have become one of the most successfull countries in the world.
And what would have Portugal done if they saw that same blue print, nothing, because its not the Portuguse way. This is one of the main problems with the Portuguse Goverment, they have to invent everything themselves to make it purely Portuguese. They will not learn from other countries who are successfull, and of course when they think they have invented something it is something that has been tried and tested and failed in other countries 200-300 years ago.
Also, a major factor to the recession in Portugal is the way Camaras work throughout the country. Why does it take months, sometimes years, to get these 'must have' licenses and permissions to do things. The amount of money totally wasted by folks wanting to run perfectly legal businesses, but waiting for permission to do so. I have known many proposed companies that have not bothered to start up because of the frustration of the stupidity and lazyness of the 'you cannot sack us' brigade who work in Govermental and Camara departments.
Remember, Portugal had a revoloution because the citizens did not want to be ruled by Nazis, Communists or dictators, and what have you ended up with? Thousands of dictators in every Goverment and Camara departments throughout the land. Now they are crying because they might get a 5% pay cut because of the recession, I say a lot of them deserve a 50% pay cut for the damage they have done to their own country. The main trouble is that they will continue to operate the way they do because the citizens of Portugal are to afraid to complain in case their name goes on some sort of blacklist which will damage their chance of getting permission to do something in the future.
And now we have a new Goverment, and how are they going to get Portugal out of this mess? Excactly the same as the last Goverment, more licenses to get more fines and of course tax rises which is the most stupid move of all. Everyone knows throughout the world the more you put tax up the less you collect because folks will work harder to looking for ways of not paying tax, the black economy grows rapidly.
The silly system they are about to bring out on the cross border scut motorways, guaranteed to damage the economy. Who in their right mind would want to pop over from Spain for a day or weekend in Portugal if they have got to mess around renting some device to use the motorway? If 100 or 200 drivers come into Portugal at the same time there is going to be an awful wait trying to rent a unit, and later, the hassle of taking it back to get your 50€ plus 27€ rental charge back, especially on a Sunday night when returning along with maybe 1000 other drivers. They will never return, which has just been proven on the cross border tolls in the north of Portugal.
SO WHAT CAN BE DONE TO GET PORTUGAL OUT OF THIS MESS?
1. No member of the public should have to wait any longer than 15 minutes to be served by any Goverment or Camara department, all departments are overstaffed anyway.
2.There are millions of properties in portugal that do not have a habitation licence and are not on the tax radar. Have an anmesty to register them.
3.Have a tax amnesty, for all those who have been evading tax for years and who still are. Give them a chance to come clean now and start paying their tax normally in the future. They will probably gain 25% in tax revenue which will be cheaper than trying to chase money for back taxes and also more profitable. All countries that have done this have been pleasantly surprised by the results.
4.Do not put IVA up to 25%. Drop IVA to 15% and let everyone with a fiscal number be allowed to claim 20% of their IVA back up to 1000€ without being registered for IVA every November. Extra money for a Christmas spending spree to boost shops, but the most important of this measure is that everyone will be asking for their facturas on everything, and businesses will have to declare their correct turnover, which will increase tax revenues by 40-60% because the black market in Portugal is mega.
5. Get the police to do more crime fighting and less mugging of motorists with petty hold ups of comercial transport, this is costing the country millions in work time.
6. And if you drop IVA to 15% you will get a lot of cross border trade from Spain, and save thousands of busineses within 50 kilometres of the border from going bankrupt like they are now and putting many thousands of Portuguese out of work. For this to work you will have to forget these silly tolls on cross boarder motorways, it will only cause restrictions on folks visiting Portugal.
7. Let owners from another country let their villas and apartments like they did in the past without all these new silly rules and regulations.
7. Very important, to pay the debts you have to have growth, which you will never get with all the strangulation licences you have in place
OK, so will the Goverment dare to do any of the above? NO, because no one, especially someone who is not Portuguese, can tell the Portuguse how to do things, no matter how much they have their interest at heart. They will do it their way, right or wrong, but one can only keep trying.
Lord Blore.
With my best regards,
Kiki Batchelor
Administration Manager
PREMIER PROTECT
Bespoke Business Solutions
Created on Thursday, 29 September 2011 21:55
Occassionally a reader's letter is published. The following missive crystalises many of the thoughts we have all had from time to time...
'It is impossible for Portugal to get out of this recession, the reason why is because you need the Portuguese people to do it, but they cannot, because their hands and feet are tied with so many silly rules and licenses.
There will be no new major Portuguese companies in the future because they will be strangled at birth, the Goverment burden them with so many rules and regulations and licenses, they just give up, and the sad thing is that there is no need for 90% of these rules and regulations, its just a way for the Goverment to get fines out of you, they don't seem to understand the big picture of the free market, only the petty fines of annoyance to the companies, then they finish for good.
You have 2 million Portuguese, 1/5th of the population, under medical treatment for depression and 85% of these are between the age 30-50, the time in life when you are trying so hard to get somewhere, children through school, buying a house, running a business, and the Goverment is resposible for this situation of destroying their own citizens' lives with so much no needed strangulation rules.
Example. Why do you need a license to advertise your business on your van at so much per word? You have thousands and thousands of company vans on the road and nobody knows what they do, not good for
business. Why also do you have to write out a list of what you carry in your van?
I see the police emptying out vans on the roadside checking these lists very often 4 vans at a time, each van is held up for 30 minutes.
So for the polices 6 hour shift stopping 4 vans at a time is a total of 24 hours lost work time, 3 days, for the van drivers, plus late deliveries, for the polices 6 hour shift. Not good for the economy, and for what reason other than annoying folks and getting fines? It cannot be for drugs or arms because a dog can sniff them out in seconds.
Also Portugals most important trade, tourism, they have totally wrecked, with new rules and licenses, holiday home owners are selling up and leaving Portugal for ever; 8000 British families in the past 12 months.
What the Goverment do not seem to understand is, that one British family just living here not even working puts more money into the economy than probably 20 portuguese families working. And the British family has relatives and friends coming to Portugal for holidays and bringing much needed fresh money to Portugal, and especially today in a recession thats what Portugal needs most, fresh money coming into the country.
Folks who buy holiday homes here or come to retire from another county should be given medals not burdened with all the silly rules and licenses the Goverment put on them just to scrounge a little money, and because of that they lose millions of fresh money to the economy.
One example on how much they are losing, one holiday company in the UK had 3600 private holiday villas and apartments on their books, and after the new rules the goverment brought out, the following year they had 249 left on their books, talk about shooting yourself in the foot, billions now lost since these rules came out.
Because of this Portugal, with the loss of tourisim income, was going downhill rapidly long before they had a chance to blame the banks. China had the same problems all through their communist years, impossible for the man on the street to succeed, and then they went into HongKong saw how happy and rich folks were, so they took a look at the Hongkong blueprint on how they succeeded and copied it all over China and throughout the world, and now have become one of the most successfull countries in the world.
And what would have Portugal done if they saw that same blue print, nothing, because its not the Portuguse way. This is one of the main problems with the Portuguse Goverment, they have to invent everything themselves to make it purely Portuguese. They will not learn from other countries who are successfull, and of course when they think they have invented something it is something that has been tried and tested and failed in other countries 200-300 years ago.
Also, a major factor to the recession in Portugal is the way Camaras work throughout the country. Why does it take months, sometimes years, to get these 'must have' licenses and permissions to do things. The amount of money totally wasted by folks wanting to run perfectly legal businesses, but waiting for permission to do so. I have known many proposed companies that have not bothered to start up because of the frustration of the stupidity and lazyness of the 'you cannot sack us' brigade who work in Govermental and Camara departments.
Remember, Portugal had a revoloution because the citizens did not want to be ruled by Nazis, Communists or dictators, and what have you ended up with? Thousands of dictators in every Goverment and Camara departments throughout the land. Now they are crying because they might get a 5% pay cut because of the recession, I say a lot of them deserve a 50% pay cut for the damage they have done to their own country. The main trouble is that they will continue to operate the way they do because the citizens of Portugal are to afraid to complain in case their name goes on some sort of blacklist which will damage their chance of getting permission to do something in the future.
And now we have a new Goverment, and how are they going to get Portugal out of this mess? Excactly the same as the last Goverment, more licenses to get more fines and of course tax rises which is the most stupid move of all. Everyone knows throughout the world the more you put tax up the less you collect because folks will work harder to looking for ways of not paying tax, the black economy grows rapidly.
The silly system they are about to bring out on the cross border scut motorways, guaranteed to damage the economy. Who in their right mind would want to pop over from Spain for a day or weekend in Portugal if they have got to mess around renting some device to use the motorway? If 100 or 200 drivers come into Portugal at the same time there is going to be an awful wait trying to rent a unit, and later, the hassle of taking it back to get your 50€ plus 27€ rental charge back, especially on a Sunday night when returning along with maybe 1000 other drivers. They will never return, which has just been proven on the cross border tolls in the north of Portugal.
SO WHAT CAN BE DONE TO GET PORTUGAL OUT OF THIS MESS?
1. No member of the public should have to wait any longer than 15 minutes to be served by any Goverment or Camara department, all departments are overstaffed anyway.
2.There are millions of properties in portugal that do not have a habitation licence and are not on the tax radar. Have an anmesty to register them.
3.Have a tax amnesty, for all those who have been evading tax for years and who still are. Give them a chance to come clean now and start paying their tax normally in the future. They will probably gain 25% in tax revenue which will be cheaper than trying to chase money for back taxes and also more profitable. All countries that have done this have been pleasantly surprised by the results.
4.Do not put IVA up to 25%. Drop IVA to 15% and let everyone with a fiscal number be allowed to claim 20% of their IVA back up to 1000€ without being registered for IVA every November. Extra money for a Christmas spending spree to boost shops, but the most important of this measure is that everyone will be asking for their facturas on everything, and businesses will have to declare their correct turnover, which will increase tax revenues by 40-60% because the black market in Portugal is mega.
5. Get the police to do more crime fighting and less mugging of motorists with petty hold ups of comercial transport, this is costing the country millions in work time.
6. And if you drop IVA to 15% you will get a lot of cross border trade from Spain, and save thousands of busineses within 50 kilometres of the border from going bankrupt like they are now and putting many thousands of Portuguese out of work. For this to work you will have to forget these silly tolls on cross boarder motorways, it will only cause restrictions on folks visiting Portugal.
7. Let owners from another country let their villas and apartments like they did in the past without all these new silly rules and regulations.
7. Very important, to pay the debts you have to have growth, which you will never get with all the strangulation licences you have in place
OK, so will the Goverment dare to do any of the above? NO, because no one, especially someone who is not Portuguese, can tell the Portuguse how to do things, no matter how much they have their interest at heart. They will do it their way, right or wrong, but one can only keep trying.
Lord Blore.
With my best regards,
Kiki Batchelor
Administration Manager
PREMIER PROTECT
Bespoke Business Solutions
) set up home in Portugal, then moan about Portugal! No matter who or what you are, you are guests in another country, if you can't 'fit in' or you want a little slice of the UK in the sun, perhaps you're there for the wrong reasons. Many ex-pats are very well off by Portuguese standards: detached villas with pools, two or more cars, dine out in restaurants on a regular basis; a life style most Portuguese dream off. When such 'rich' folk complain about their adopted country I'm sure it thoroughly pees off the Portuguese man in the street, big time.
