How long does it take to be prescribed?

“THEEven before we talk about the statute of limitations on tax debts, it is important to keep in mind its number expirythat is, the amortization of the right to adjust the tax, in accordance with the terms of number 1 of article 45 of the General Tax Law (GTL): “The right to adjust taxes is time-barred if the determination is not validly notified to the taxpayer. within four years, when the law does not stipulate otherwise.

Thus, as a general rule, the Tax Authority will not be able to determine tax if the corresponding determination is not communicated to the taxable person within a period four years.

as for the medical prescriptioni.e. with regard to the right to collect tax from the Tax Office, according to paragraph 1 of article 48 of the L.F.E.: “Tax debts are defined, apart from those provided for in a special law, within a period of eight years inclusive, in the periodicals taxes, from the end of the year in which the taxable event occurred and, in the case of individual liability taxes, from the date the taxable event occurred, except for value added tax and income taxes when taxation is carried out by final withholding in source, in which case this period is calculated from the beginning of the calendar year following the one in which the tax liability or the taxable event occurred, respectively.

Therefore, tax debts generally provide for eight years.

as for the obligation to pay contributions and social security contributions defines within 5 years from the date on which it should have been fulfilled.

In this sense, paragraph 1 of article 187 of the Code of Contributions of the Social Security System states that: “The obligation to pay contributions and contributions, the corresponding default interest and other amounts due to social security, in the context of the relationship. legal contribution, defines within a period of five years from the date on which the obligation in question should have been fulfilled.”

However, it should be noted, from now on, that both for tax debts and for Social Security debts there are reasons for suspension and interruption of the statute of limitations.

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Dantas Rodrigues is a lawyer and partner at Dantas Rodrigues & Associados. He has been a member of the Bar Association since 1993. He attended a Master’s Degree in Law in the field of Legal Sciences – Law in Action, in the academic year 1997/1998, at the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. Since 1995 he has been Professor of Law at the Higher Education of the Polytechnic.