While the country’s chief tax inspector has been out jtrying to justify earning four times more than the prime minister (€20,000 a month) by more than doubling coerced tax payments in 2006, it seems he and his department are not quite ready to lay off non-compliant taxpayers. By the end of the year, in what has been termed the Christmas Car Crackdown, up to 47,000 taxpayers could be without their vehicles. At the time of going to press, the Treasury had already impounded 6,600 cars previously owned by citizens with long-overdue taxes.

An additional number of 40,000 car owners are already on the DGCI’s short-list, and has promised no respite in the festive season as it looks to end 2006 with a bumper Christmas stocking of coerced payments.

Taxpayers who have acted in defiance of the DGCI on at least three occasions face being served with an order to hand over their car keys and papers, in what is yet another unprecedented crackdown on tax evaders.

To date, the vehicle registry office in Lisbon has a list of 6,609 cars now belonging to the taxman, who has shown a clear preference for Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Volvo when carrying out seizures.

In the meantime, the estimated 40,000 non-compliant taxpayers on the DGCI shortlist are expected to receive notifications one last time in the coming weeks.

In these final warnings, citizens will be told the make, model and registration of the vehicle they stand to lose unless they proceed with the payment of an outstanding debt within a limited number of days.

Once this deadline has expired, inspectors will be sent out in the company of tow-away vehicles to seize the identified car that will subsequently be placed on public auction.

Finance Ministry sources say that only taxpayers who have been warned three times or more to settle an outstanding debt face losing their cars.

In the meantime, and as workers at DGCI offices prepare to send out 40,000 letters and swiftly act upon them, it was revealed that tax debts associated with the owners of these vehicles now stands at 1.161 billion euros.

The DGCI has however admitted that the value of the cars cited will probably not cover the outstanding debt, and have therefore ordered tax inspectors to seek out real estate owned by those at odds with the taxman as a means of completely recuperating bad debts to the state.