Some time ago I was writing to say that there were some news about the austerity measures sugested by the Troika to the Portuguese Government in order to control the Public Budget and Debt.

It is commonly known that in spite of all the hard times Portuguese people were already facing, the than recently elected Government decided to improve the existing situation in order to avoid 2012 to be worst that 2011.

In face of all the news and propaganda, I had considered (and, therefore, claimed) that one of the new measures to be taken would be the tax payment increase within the food sector.

Now things seem to be easier because it is possible to know that my assumption was not correct. In fact, the VTA for that activity sector remains in the intermediate level of 13%, but water and gas prices increased only too much.

Meanwhile, the same Troika is considering Portugal to be a good student but the measures already taken and related to which the public is “informed” of must be complemented by some others, as a new hole of €1000 million was found in the State Expenses for 2011 (1st Semester). So, the Troika is saying: “no more tax increase, but less TSU [Unique Social Tax]“. However, the fact is that the TSU decrease impact is not that expected as the great majority of the Portuguese companies are those of small size, with only very few employées…

And the fact is that the State machine seems to be spending as much as it is usual…