Findings on Tax Litigation before the Southern and Northern Central Administrative Courts – Judgments published between 2018 and 2023

CIDEEFF publishes the report “Findings on Tax Litigation before the Southern and Northern Central Administrative Courts – Judgments published between 2018 and 2023”, within the framework of the project Tax Litigation in Portugal: Legal and Empirical Assessments.

This project presents a systematised empirical analysis of the judgments delivered by the Northern and Southern Central Administrative Courts, focusing on multiple dimensions of tax litigation, namely: type of appeal and action, taxes under dispute, payment of interest, profile of appellants and taxpayers, the position of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the outcome of decisions, voting patterns, and the duration of proceedings. Its objective is the construction of structured databases and the application of descriptive statistical methodology, enabling the identification of litigation patterns and institutional trends over the period under analysis.

This report highlights relevant differences between the two courts in terms of caseload volume, allocation of cases among reporting judges, and procedural timelines, while emphasising that such differences should be interpreted with caution, in view of sample limitations and the exceptional context of the pandemic period. The conclusions do not seek to establish comparative performance assessments, but rather to contribute to a more informed understanding of the functioning of administrative and tax jurisdiction at appellate level.

Through this publication, CIDEEFF reaffirms its commitment to the production of rigorous, legally grounded empirical knowledge, making available to the academic community, the judiciary, public decision-makers and civil society objective elements to support the debate on the efficiency, predictability and fairness of tax justice in Portugal.