All goods transported within the Portuguese territory to taxpayers must be accompanied by transport documents issued in accordance with the Portuguese legislation. As from the 1 of July 2013 there is a new obligation to submit the information of the transport documents to the Tax Authority prior to the beginning of the transport. The communication is to be made by electronic means (or by phone in case of failure of the software). Upon receiving the information, a code is provided to the taxpayer, which must be shown in case of an inspection by the Tax Authority.

The reason of the implementation of this new measure is to eliminate fraud. The main goal of the Portuguese Tax Authorities is to cross-check the information related to transport documents and invoices. The Portuguese Tax Authority suspects that part of goods which are sold is not properly taxed for VAT purposes.

For any further details please contact susana.claro@pt.pwc.com