Miranda do Douro Dam
The municipalities in the district of Bragança with dams announced that they will fly their flags at half-mast in protest over the lack of collection of taxes resulting from the sale of six electricity production centers installed in this territory and which harmed taxpayers by more than 400 million euros.
This Friday, the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Mogadouro, Torre de Moncorvo and Carrazeda de Ansiães will have the flags at half mast in the form of protest for the lack of collection of dam taxes.
The municipalities meet at 11am with the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, at the Ministry of Finance, in Lisbon.
The mayors of Miranda do Douro, Mogadouro, Torre de Moncorvo and Carrazeda de Ansiães, in a document sent to the Lusa agency, stated that “the sale for 2.2 million euros was made, under the cover of aggressive tax planning formulas, without payment IRC, Stamp Tax and IMT and IMI, harmed Portuguese taxpayers by more than 400 million euros”.
For the mayor of Mogadouro, Antonio Pimentela municipality that has in its territory one of the six dams [Bemposta] who entered into the deal made between EDP and Engie, told Lusa that they will fly the municipal flag at half-mast as a way of claiming the taxes owed.
“We understand that we have rights to taxes resulting from the sale of the six dams in the Douro river basin, such as Miranda do Douro, Picote, Bemposta, Feiticeiro, Baixo Sabor and Foz Tua. This deal wasn’t done rightand if it wasn’t, the necessary corrections need to be made”, indicated the social-democratic mayor of this municipality in the district of Bragança.
Victor Bernardocouncilor of the municipality of Miranda do Douro, which has the Miranda and Picote dams in its municipality, stated that they will place the flags at half-mast, in a sign of mourning, “for the Franciscan poverty that existed in the non-collection of taxes and the consequent non-delivery of these amounts to the municipalities that have this right”.
“Four years after the sale of the six dams, as far as we know, nothing has yet been done in terms of tax collection for this million-dollar transaction”, stressed the Mirandese mayor.
On December 20, 2024, four years will pass since EDP Produção de Energia SA sold six dams on the Douro River for 2,200 million euros to a fund led by the French company Engie.
“The ruinous deal for taxpayers and for the prestige of institutions was only possible because the [então] minister Matos Fernandes and the Portuguese Environment Agency [APA] authorized it, despite being previously warned by the Terra de Miranda Cultural Movement [MCTM]indicate the mayors in the same note.
According to this group of city halls, the most serious thing is that the deal only came to fruition because the day before, a surgical change was made to article 60 of the Tax Benefits Statute.
“One law tailored to the installed powers manufactured behind the back and to the detriment of taxpayers. All these facts are public knowledge and were reported in due time, both to the Public Ministry and the Federal Revenue”, they state.
The mayors in question ask themselves how it is possible that the tax inspection carried out in the dam sales business remains on the back burner or who cares that tax inspection has become a “a kind of works by Santa Engrácia, with no end in sightand with those responsible for the hoax going unpunished.”
The municipalities subscribing to this statement say they remain “firm, attentive and determined to obtain the collection of taxes for the sale of the dams, especially since more than 200 million euros are revenue for the municipalities”.
“We are determined to fight until we achieve justice for all citizens who live in our municipalities. We will make it, We will only stop when EDP pays the 200 million Euros it owes us”, insist these Trás-os-Montes municipalities with dams in their territories
On November 18, the MCTM warned of the “serious risk” of the Government allowing the IMI for dams for the year 2020 to expire, this being considered “a major scandal in the dam business”.
