The portuguese hospitality and restaurant industry: Tax challenges post COVID-19

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to understand the evolution of taxation in the accommodation and restaurant industry. In particular, it has three objectives: (1) to study how it has been occurring the taxation of this sector in Portugal, (2) to know if Portuguese legislators adopted tax measures specific to this economic area, and (3) to understand what post-COVID-19 perspectives are in the sector of the fiscal domain. For this purpose, business and tax law of Portugal were investigated. The results show that the Portuguese tax legislator hasn't been paying attention to the lodging and restaurant sector. There were some changes in the income and consumption tax domain in the last 10 years underpinned by the will to increase investment and to control tax avoidance, but hardly were introduced tax measures to help this business area in the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there was another kind of economic financial support given by the Portuguese government, in the fiscal domain, the IVAucher measure was introduced.