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Receipts from IMT Skyrocket by 50% in 12 Municipalities

3 October 2018

Oeiras saw one of the most significant increases (110%), though Lisbon’s grew by the most.

The Nova Business School of Economics’ (Nova SBE) move from Lisbon to Carcavelos led António Catarino to try his hand at new business: renting homes to students. Buying a house in Oeiras was the next step. Mr Catarino wasn’t the only one and the local government’s receipts from IMT prove it. In 2017, Oeiras saw its receipts from the tax levied on the sale of homes shoot up by 110%. In Cascais, the increase surpassed 50%. The government’s income from IMT is a reflection of the current state of the real estate market, as homes sell rapidly and continually appreciate. In Portugal as a whole, a total of twelve municipalities saw receipts from the tax increase by at least 50%.

Contrary to the municipal real estate tax (the IMI, which, between 2016 and 2017, saw revenues fall for the second consecutive year), IMT followed the growth in the real estate market as a whole, bringing 198 million euros more in 2017 that it had in the year before, an increase of 30.2%.

Those receipts led the Order of Certified Accountants, in the 2017 edition of its Financial Yearbook of Portuguese Municipalities, published yesterday, to note “the extraordinary increase” of receipts from the tax, which has already become the “most relevant” source of revenue for many municipalities.

Lisbon, Porto, Cascais (where the IMT rose by 52.1%), Loulé and Portimão are just some of the municipalities where the tax on the sale of houses has already surpassed the municipalities’ receipts from the IMI. Grândola, which also includes Comporta, one of the areas that have also been a favourite of investors, and where receipts from the IMT were historically limited (3.17 million euros), became one of the municipalities where revenue from the tax is in the tens of millions of euros (10.83 million euros).

Among the 35 municipalities with the highest level of revenues from IMT, 32 saw their receipts increase, and in twelve, annual growth exceeded 50%. The only three municipalities to register a fall were Coimbra, Silves and Maia.

Original Story: Diário de Notícias – Lucília Tiago

Translation: Richard Turner