In a letter sent to the Government, to which Expresso had access, APCC’s president, António Sampaio de Mattos, asks for «additional measures for this sector so as to guarantee that the companies can be a leverage for the economic and job recovery in the post-emergency state-stage». The shopping centre segment employs more than 100.000 people in Portugal and moves around 10.000 million euro.
Amongst the APCC proposals, are the flexibilization of the VAT declaration, suspension of IRC (Portuguese corporate income tax), IMI (Real estate municipal tax) and other tax payments during the emergency period, the approval of an exceptional scheme concerning the deadlines to liquidate taxes or even the creation of a fund to guarantee rental grants.
APCC mentioned that the exceptional scheme for delayed payment on rents and other contractual forms of exploring commercial areas, «represents significant direct support from shopping centre owners to retailers during this unprecedented period» and «it allows better treasury management for retailers». But it alerts that the measure «will have a significant impact on the shopping centre’s accounts, with the lack of rents received during the normal deadlines and its later partial payments, taking into account that shopping centres remain open, with high operational costs». The APCC further asks that the Government find ways to support retailers together with the European institutions, regardless of the measures already taken.