In the current economic scenario, any corporate tax regime plays a big role in the promotion of economic growth and the Portuguese regime is no exception, even though it can generate important distortions in investment decisions.

Nowadays, Portugal has a robust corporate tax regime which has been in force for over 20 years, and which has been contaminated by recurrent changes to the tax legislation, specifically tailored amendments and the recent need to raise tax revenues.

Notwithstanding, the time has come to make an end-to-end revision of the current corporate tax regime, considering the need to revise and simplify the taxation of companies thus promoting investment - be it domestic, inbound or outbound -, the need to revise and simplify the current regime of ancillary obligations imposed on taxpayers thus reducing some of the existing bureaucracy and the need to restructure the current international tax policy followed by Portugal in its relations with other countries and its positioning in a globalized economy, namely as regards the negotiation and conclusion of double taxation agreements.

With the above mentioned objectives in mind, a special commission (the "Reform Commission") was appointed by the Portuguese Government to study the necessary changes and put forward a proposal of revision of the Corporate Income Tax Code and related legislation, which conclusions have been presented on 30 July 2013.

Please find below a summary of the most relevant proposals.