Beja, Portugal, Oct. 24, 2025 (Lusa) - The company that manages the Alqueva development has filed a lawsuit with the Beja administrative court to contest the payment of Municipal Property Tax (IMI) on its dams, the organisation's president said on Friday.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, the president of the Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Company (EDIA), José Pedro Salema, said that this lawsuit against the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) has already been filed with the Beja Administrative and Tax Court (TAF).
"There is a major difference of opinions regarding the applicability and taxation of IMI in some dams, in this case the dams operated by EDIA," he said.
At issue is the AT's issuing of IMI assessment notes to EDIA, which has its headquarters in Beja, totalling more than €4.7 million, Jornal de Notícias reported on Thursday.
"The tax authorities have issued collection notes, and what EDIA is trying to contest is the collection of this tax," said José Pedro Salema.
According to the manager, the dams in the Alqueva development "are infrastructures that are in the public domain, managed by a public company".
"Therefore, it doesn't make much sense for the state to tax itself," he noted.
José Pedro Salema also said that EDIA "is a public company and has an operation that doesn't free up margin to pay this tax".
He also said that if the Alqueva company really does have to pay the IMI on the dams, "there are two options: either it doesn't pay because it doesn't have the money to do so, or it asks the state for money to pay the tax that the state is charging".
Another possibility would be to "reflect" the value of the tax "in the prices of the services charged, increasing them", warned José Pedro Salema.
"But I don't think that's what you want either. We don't want to change the rules of the game for farmers who have been operating for a long time, and these are our main customers," he noted.
In May, the working group set up to define how dams should be assessed for IMI purposes concluded that the tax is owed by the concessionaire or licence holder, and proposed that they be included in the IMI code.
On 15 October, parliament approved a hearing for the director-general of the AT, Helena Borges, to give an update on the collection of taxes on dams.
CYMP/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
