IMI Tax Reduced!

By now every property owner in Portugal will have received their IMI tax demand for the year 2016. Having  received our own demand we were pleasantly surprised to find it had dropped dramatically from last year by 21%.

This applies to the Municipality of Loule who have reduced the rate from 0.38% to 0.30% of the “rateable value” (not the market price, in many cases typically half the current market price). We don’t know what other Councils have done.

The above applies to those with property with “rateable values” (Patrimonial Value) below €600k, remember not “market price.”

If you fall into the €601 -€1,000,000 bracket they have added an additional tax of 0.7% on the amount over €600,000 and for those over €1m there is also an additional tax of 1% on the value over the €1m leval although this is actually a reduction on the previous amount.

If your property is owned via an Offshore Company which is “White Listed” you pay an additional fee of 0.4% but if your Offshore Company is in a “Black Listed” territory you pay a whopping 7.5% per year.

When you as an individual are assessed for your liability it is your share of the property that is taken into account in the case of joint ownership but also is the sum of all properties you own.

Are more tax cuts on the way?