Paying Taxes

I got two letters the other day. Both from the tax and finance people; the "Autoridade Tributária" or, as they are more commonly known, the "Finanças" office. Of course they were written in Portuguese and so needed some translation. One of them was really quite strange and even with Google Translate it was difficult to make out what it was going on about, although to be honest, I didn't try very hard. The other was clearly a bill of some kind, which had me a little worried, and also very curious since as far as I was aware I did not owe any taxes. Furthermore, they were late, due to being sent to the wrong address and consequently forwarded through my wife's work and finally, to me. Very worrying indeed.

On Tuesday I took the letters in to the office at work and was told that there had been a mistake and that I needed to take them down to the Finanças office in Cascais as soon as possible and sort the matter out. I do not work on Tuesday afternoons, so that is exactly what I did. Armed with my letters, my Kindle and a bottle of water I went down there prepared. Prepared to wait. And wait. And....Wait. I've been to the finance office before you see and knew exactly what to expect. Just inside the door is a ticket dispenser with five buttons on. I had been advised by a friend to press each button once to get a numbered ticket for each department and sit down to wait. And I was tempted to do that for a fleeting moment. However, there were clearly many signs up on the wall in very plain Portuguese that you should only press once. (Yes, even with my basic Portuguese I understand that "bilhete", "botão" and "número" mean "ticket", "button" and "number" respectively!) I scanned the options and pressed button number 3. It had some words printed next to it and one of them was what I recognised to be the word for Tax. Out came my ticket at the bottom of the machine. B102. Lovely. Time to take a seat and open my Kindle. Judging by the numbers displayed on the screen on the wall it was inevitable that I'd have to wait for some considerable time before I was seen.

So, there I sat, reading my book, looking up periodically at the wall mounted television screen, watching the numbers tick over, one by one. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably more realistically only 20 or 30 minutes, my number came up indicating that the person at Desk 7 was ready and waiting to attend to my dilemma. Fortunately, he spoke English. I found out that the first letter was asking me to declare my IVA, which I'm led to understand is a little bit like National Insurance or Social Security or something like that which should be dealt with every three months. The second letter was a fine for not making that declaration. The nice man then told me that he could alter my details to prevent my mail being sent to the wrong address again but that I needed to see his colleague a few desks along, who would be able accept my payment for the fine that I had incurred. So, dutifully, I went and sat back down on one of the colourful plastic chairs to read and to wait once more for B102 to re-appear on the magical television screen. Eventually, after finishing two short books and giving up completely on a very heavy thesis regarding the nature of the emergent entropic nature of gravity, my number came up again. Unfortunately the lady at this desk did not speak English but with the help of my trusty dictionary I managed to deduce two things. Firstly, that she couldn't help me. Secondly, that I needed to go and wait for my number to come up on the screen and indicate which of the dedicated payment desks at the end of the room to go to and pay my fine. And so, yet again, I retired to the comfort of my plastic chair.

It was twenty five minutes to four. I had entered the building and first retrieved my ticket at ten past two. I knew that for certain because it was printed on the ticket. The office closed at four o'clock and from the increasing number of empty plastic chairs I was hopeful that I would be seen, for hopefully the third and last time, before closing. One by one the numbers on the screen changed and I waited. One by one the people working the office attended to what was obviously their last client and vacated their desks. By four fifteen I was the only person sitting and waiting. Also I had noticed that the numbers on the television screen had not changed for the last ten minutes. At this point I realised that maybe, just maybe, I had been told to get a new ticket and wait? I suppose I'll never know. I discretely got up and made for the door.

Yesterday I took the letter to a cash machine to pay the fine. The instructions on the reverse of the letter were clear enough. I had to make a few menu selections and then input the 15 digit reference number. Two minutes later and the fine was paid. It was almost too easy. I wish I'd realised how easy when I was sitting and waiting at the Finanças office on Tuesday.

I've booked an appointment on Monday with the head finance guy where I work, to talk to him about what happened, why it went wrong and to make sure that it doesn't happen again. And hopefully that will be the end of the matter.

The Lessons To Be Learnt

1. Always make sure that the tax people know where you live.
2. Always make sure that you deal with any erroneous letters from the tax office swiftly.
3. Always take a book.

I just have to sort out my UK tax now, before the deadline of January 31st.