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Comment by therealmarv | Hacker News Reader

Portugal is broke, there is no easy solution, they need their taxes (actually even more than now).

Shift burden from income tax -> property tax. My country (Croatia) has a similar issue and the finance minister even said he thinks this is the correct move but there's no "political will" to do this.

In Portugal far more people own houses than in other countries and these people have no interest in voting for such a policy.

Same thing as Croatia (realeatate investment is viewed as only safe investment and basically people's retirement savings).

Economic situation (and mentality) is very similar - Portugals problem seems to be more extreme though since it's located in a more interesting area (closer to developed Europe).

I heard some people are just starting to consider Croatia, EU integration is still happening, the Euro just arrived. Give it 10 years …

Yeah it's already headed in that direction with realestate pricing. The only upside is that in Croatia you can pay <25% tax if you work as a contractor (up to 1M€ income per year) and there's a decent level of private healthcare available since medical tourism is a thing.

This would be ideal, but as so many people own their own homes, this would be politically unfeasible.

I would increase property tax exponentially after the 5th property or so, to hit the big landlords and investment funds, while keeping the homeowners and small landlords appeased. Then take that money and build or buy public housing to rent for cheap prices, to bring the prices down for everyone.

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