João Taborda da Gama on PodCAAD
In November, Gama Glória partner João Taborda da Gama was featured on PodCAAD, the podcast produced by the Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa (CAAD), for a far-reaching conversation on the evolution of administrative and tax justice in Portugal
He explored the Government’s proposed reforms to the Tribunal de Contas (Court of Accounts), the Public Contracts Code and the Administrative Procedure Code, offering a view of what these shifts could mean in practice. On the Tribunal de Contas, João argued that Portugal should move away from a heavy reliance on visto prévio and towards models of successive and a posteriori control, similar to the evolution seen in tax administration: oversight that happens after expenditure, not before it, can maintain rigor while avoiding bottlenecks that slow down public projects. On public procurement, he stressed the need for simplification grounded in trust, noting that the legal framework should assume good faith from both decision-makers and contractors, instead of treating them as presumptive wrongdoers. And on administrative procedure, he highlighted that true digital transformation is not about replacing paper with PDFs but about eliminating obsolete requirements altogether, freeing citizens and companies from repeated bureaucratic demands that no longer make sense.
The conversation then widened to the tax system: why much of the rhetoric around “complexity” is overstated, where litigation actually originates, and how transparency in first-instance decisions — such as those published by CAAD — helps align expectations and reduce disputes. João also reflected on the challenges of teaching law in the age of AI, where the task is no longer getting students to compute outcomes (which a machine can calculate instantly), but training them to reason through ambiguity and competing interpretations. Younger generations, he noted, bring different expectations and cognitive habits shaped by digital environments, which changes the way legal education must evolve.
João’s “good idea for justice” focused on strengthening mobility across legal careers so that more legal professionals have the opportunity to see issues from more than one side. In his view, this diversity of perspective is one of the most effective — and underrated — ways to improve the quality of decisions and the culture of justice.
PodCAAD amplifies leading voices in law, public policy, and justice to reflect on how legal institutions work, and how they might evolve to work better. Prominent figures from Portugal’s legal and institutional landscape discuss themes that range from arbitration and regulation to the modernization of justice – and within this series, João’s episode is an example of thought leadership on the evolution of administrative and tax justice.
The episode is available on CAAD’s website and major streaming platforms, and we thank Nuno Villa-Lobos for the kind invitation.
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João Taborda da Gama no PodCAAD
Em novembro, o sócio da Gama Glória João Taborda da Gama participou no PodCAAD, o podcast do Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa (CAAD), numa conversa aprofundada sobre a evolução da justiça administrativa e fiscal em Portugal.
Ao longo do episódio, o João analisou as reformas que o Governo prepara para o Tribunal de Contas, o Código dos Contratos Públicos e o Código do Procedimento Administrativo, refletindo sobre o impacto prático que estas mudanças podem ter. No que respeita ao Tribunal de Contas, defendeu que Portugal deve reduzir a dependência do visto prévio e evoluir para modelos de controlo sucessivo e a posteriori, à semelhança do que já aconteceu na administração fiscal: um controlo exercido após a realização da despesa pode preservar o rigor sem criar bloqueios que atrasam a execução de projetos públicos. No domínio da contratação pública, sublinhou a importância de simplificar os procedimentos com base na confiança, partindo do princípio de que decisores públicos e operadores privados atuam, regra geral, de boa-fé, em vez de serem tratados como suspeitos à partida. Já quanto ao procedimento administrativo, destacou que uma verdadeira transformação digital não passa por substituir papel por PDFs, mas por eliminar exigências obsoletas, libertando cidadãos e empresas de encargos burocráticos repetidos e sem utilidade real.
A conversa alargou-se depois ao sistema fiscal: à perceção — muitas vezes exagerada — da sua complexidade, às verdadeiras origens da litigância e ao papel da transparência nas decisões de primeira instância. O João salientou, em particular, a importância da publicação das decisões do CAAD para alinhar expectativas e contribuir para a redução de conflitos. Refletiu ainda sobre os desafios do ensino do Direito numa era marcada pela inteligência artificial, em que o essencial já não é ensinar a calcular resultados (algo que a tecnologia faz instantaneamente), mas sim formar juristas capazes de lidar com a ambiguidade, a interpretação e o raciocínio crítico. As gerações mais novas, observou, trazem consigo novas expectativas e hábitos cognitivos moldados por ambientes digitais, o que obriga a repensar a forma como o Direito é ensinado.
Na sua “boa ideia para a justiça”, o João defendeu o reforço da mobilidade entre carreiras jurídicas, criando condições para que mais profissionais possam conhecer diferentes perspetivas ao longo do seu percurso. Para o João, esta diversidade de experiências é uma das formas mais eficazes — e frequentemente subestimadas — de melhorar a qualidade das decisões e a própria cultura da justiça.
O PodCAAD dá voz a protagonistas do Direito, das Políticas Públicas e das Instituições, promovendo uma reflexão crítica sobre o funcionamento do sistema jurídico e os caminhos possíveis para a sua evolução. Neste contexto, o episódio com João Taborda da Gama constitui um contributo relevante para o debate sobre o futuro da justiça administrativa e fiscal.
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Full Episode Transcript.
The following transcript is a reconstructed English translation based on an automatic transcription of the original Portuguese audio, edited for clarity, coherence, and readability while preserving the substance and intent of the speakers’ remarks.
SECTION 1 — INTRODUCTION & FIRST QUESTION
Isabel:
Welcome to PodCAAD, the podcast of the Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa. Our guest for this episode is João Taborda da Gama — tax lawyer, arbitrator, and university professor. João, thank you for accepting our invitation.
This legislative cycle, the Government has committed to simplifying and reducing bureaucratic barriers in order to make life easier for citizens and companies. In January, it will present three major reforms — a sort of “re-plumbing” of the State — aligned with the European Commission’s direction of travel:
• a revision of the Organic Law of the Tribunal de Contas (Court of Auditors),
• a revision of the Public Contracts Code, and
• a revision of the Administrative Procedure Code.
Let’s look at them one by one, starting with the revision of the Organic Law of the Tribunal de Contas — particularly the proposal to eliminate visto prévio (the requirement of prior approval before certain public expenditures). What is your view? What are the advantages, the disadvantages, and the implications you foresee?
João:
This is an old debate: what is the most effective way to control public spending — the money that belongs to all of us? What seems to be gaining consensus is a preference for successive or a posteriori oversight, rather than creating bottlenecks or “closed doors” that require administrative or judicial acts before expenditure can occur.
There’s a long discussion about the legal nature of visto prévio, but that isn’t really the point. The point is that no major expenditure should be hostage to acts that can still be carried out — and whose consequences can be addressed — later on.
If we look at tax administration worldwide, the trend has been similar. Decades ago, the tax authority played a central role in determining and triggering the moment of payment. Today, about 90% of public revenue is collected through private acts of taxpayers and companies, with the tax authority performing oversight afterward. The world didn’t collapse — in fact, revenue increased, and the administration can focus on what truly matters.
So I don’t see why public financial oversight shouldn’t evolve in the same direction. A posteriori control accelerates the execution of public projects without compromising credibility or financial discipline. Oversight is actually more meaningful afterward, because that’s when we can see the effects of expenditure and verify whether it complied with the legal framework.
Visto prévio often delays public spending. But public spending is the way in which tax revenue is returned to citizens. The faster and more effectively that spending occurs, the more justified the taxes feel. Reforming oversight so that it focuses on the right moments — mostly after expenditure, not before — seems to me both logical and positive.
There are many well-intentioned political decision-makers who want to deliver public projects but feel blocked by layers of internal bureaucracy that prevent them from returning taxpayers’ money to citizens in the form of investment — whether at the local, regional, or national level.
SECTION 2 — Reform of the Public Contracts Code
Isabel:
Let’s turn now to the revision of the Public Contracts Code. We know that public procurement is often identified as a problem area — for hospitals, universities, and many public bodies, even hiring people can become extremely difficult. Can you help us understand where the complexity lies and how it ends up affecting the economy and the creation of wealth?
João:
Public procurement is another area that absolutely needs to be simplified — without losing control. That requires a shift in how we look at public spending and public contracts. Too often, the system is built on suspicion. Instead, it should be built on trust: trust that most public officials are serious people, and trust that most private contractors are serious people as well.
That is the reality, and it is what the data shows. But the legal architecture of public procurement often assumes the opposite — that the political decision-maker and the contracted company are potential wrongdoers, or even criminals. That mindset is deeply problematic. It feeds populist narratives, it is not supported by the facts, and it does nothing to help the economy move forward.
What we need is a framework that preserves essential guarantees, but allows public spending to be carried out by the best bidder, within a timeframe that makes sense in the real world. Citizens and communities should be able to benefit from public investment more quickly, with greater autonomy and confidence in the system.
Isabel:
That idea of trust seems central here.
João:
It is. A functioning system has to trust the person who decides on a given expenditure. And it also has to recognise the limits of judicial scrutiny in this context. One thing is to assess whether the procedures for a public contract were respected. Another, very different thing is to say, “There was a better project that should have been funded instead.” That kind of judgment belongs in the political sphere, not in the courts.
No jurisdictional body should be deciding which public works are more desirable than others. The role of oversight is to ensure legality and compliance, not to substitute political choices. When we blur that line, we create paralysis rather than accountability.
SECTION 3 — Reform of the Administrative Procedure Code & Digitalization
Isabel:
Let’s move on to the Administrative Procedure Code. Everything administrative ultimately has to do with how the State functions. In practical terms, how do you think this area can be improved in a way that citizens actually feel in their day-to-day lives?
João:
What it seems to me is that this Government is beginning to acknowledge something fundamental: the world has changed. And it has changed through an acceleration of digitalization that is very different from what we saw twenty or thirty years ago.
But digitalization cannot mean simply taking a piece of paper and turning it into a digital file. That mindset is not enough. The real question should be: does that document still need to exist at all? That is the kind of question reform has to ask.
There are countless administrative requirements that come from a completely different era — from a time before even the first waves of digitalization. These requirements should be removed, while still ensuring trust, legal certainty, and fairness.
Anyone who has gone through everyday administrative processes — buying a house, getting divorced, dealing with an inheritance, registering the death of a family member — knows what I’m talking about. People are constantly asked to submit the same documents over and over again, documents that the State already has, or should already have, because everything is supposedly digitalized.
The same happens with something as simple as enrolling a child in school. These are situations we all recognise, and they are unnecessary. Eliminating this repetition would free citizens and businesses from a huge waste of time.
That time could translate into higher productivity — which is obviously good for the country — but it could also be used for rest, for living, for looking at the sea, for reading poetry. I don’t have a purely economic or efficiency-driven view of this. Freeing up time is essential for a full life, for people and for organizations.
In a country that is not particularly wealthy, like Portugal, the State may not always be able to give people more money. But it can give them time. And that, in my view, is an obligation of the State.
From what I can see, this Government is beginning to move in that direction, and I welcome that very much.
SECTION 4 — Administrative and Tax Justice: Delays, Litigation, and Structural Causes
Isabel:
Administrative and tax justice sits at the intersection between citizens, companies, and the State. We’ve recently heard criticism — including from the Minister responsible for State reform — about how long decisions take. In your view, where does the problem lie? Is it the law, the training of judges, lack of resources, or an excessive level of litigation?
João:
It’s a bit of everything.
Let me start with something quite straightforward. The overwhelming majority of tax cases are initiated by the State, usually following a tax inspection. If we look at the end of the line, whether in arbitration or in the courts, the State wins about half of those cases and loses the other half. The exact percentage isn’t the point. What matters is what that tells us: there is a large number of cases that, in hindsight, should never have existed.
Those cases clog the system. They double the workload of the courts and force judges to spend time on matters that would never have reached litigation if the Tax Authority had not issued an additional assessment in the first place.
Of course, it would be naïve to expect the Tax Authority to always get it right — just as it would be naïve to expect prosecutors to only bring cases that will certainly lead to convictions. No human system works like that. But this gap is, in my view, too wide, and there is room for improvement.
Beyond that, courts also need better resources. And that doesn’t necessarily mean more judges. What it means is giving judges the means to work more effectively. The role of judicial clerks and assistants in administrative and tax courts is absolutely fundamental.
It makes no sense to expect a judge to draft every line of every decision alone. That’s not how any intellectual work is organized. Judges should of course remain fully responsible for the core reasoning and the decision itself, but they should be supported in factual analysis, research, and drafting by qualified teams.
This would make the system more efficient and would free judges to focus on what they are trained to do: deciding difficult cases and applying the law with care. It would also give judges more time — time to think, to stay up to date, and even to have a better quality of life, instead of spending a disproportionate part of their day on purely bureaucratic tasks.
I don’t think the problem lies in excessive legal guarantees for taxpayers or private parties. But whenever we create complex legal frameworks, full of exceptions, and those frameworks are applied inconsistently by public bodies, litigation inevitably increases.
Take tax benefits, for example. They are designed to encourage certain behaviours by lowering the tax burden — that is their purpose. But they can also give rise to abuse, which needs to be scrutinised. At the same time, the Tax Authority often dislikes these benefits, especially when they are introduced by Parliament or the Government, and tries to restrict their application through administrative guidance or inspections. That combination naturally generates litigation that, in many cases, could have been avoided.
SECTION 5 — The Role of CAAD and the Impact of Transparency
Isabel:
CAAD was created, among other things, to help ease the burden on State courts. From your perspective, has it achieved that goal?
João:
Absolutely — without any doubt.
For several reasons. First, because taxpayers know they have access to a forum that is transparent, public, and economically accessible to obtain a binding decision in tax matters. That alone is extremely important.
Second — and this is something I often emphasize in conferences and in my classes — CAAD is the only first-instance jurisdictional body in Portugal that publishes its decisions. Tax courts at first instance do not publish their judgments, which I find frankly scandalous.
CAAD publishes its decisions, and that makes an enormous difference. It gives both taxpayers and the Tax Administration visibility into how the law is being applied. That visibility has an effect that is hard to quantify, but I am convinced it exists: it helps reduce litigation and encourages people to align their behavior with established interpretations.
Before CAAD existed, what could an average taxpayer, a medium-sized company, or even a law firm realistically know about how tax law was being interpreted? Mostly decisions from the Central Administrative Courts or the Supreme Administrative Court — often eight or nine years after the original tax assessments.
That time lag was enormous. CAAD reduced it dramatically — by six or seven years. And that has had a major impact, not only on litigation levels, but also on the development of tax law as a field of knowledge.
What should happen next is obvious: first-instance tax courts should also publish their decisions. There are many theories about why they don’t — some more conspiratorial than others — but in an era of digitalization, there is simply no valid excuse.
Arguments about data protection don’t convince me. Courts at higher levels manage to publish decisions while protecting personal data, and so do many other public bodies. These are public decisions on individual cases, and the judicial system knows how to handle that responsibly.
Transparency is not a luxury — it is a condition for a functioning and credible justice system.
SECTION 6 — Tax Complexity and the Future of the System
Isabel:
The Portuguese tax system is often described as highly complex — a kind of patchwork of rules and exceptions. We hear this characterisation frequently. From your perspective, what are the main challenges ahead?
João:
The challenge for the coming years is actually quite simple to state, even if it’s ambitious: people should no longer have to file a personal income tax return.
In other words, the system should evolve in such a way that, for the vast majority of taxpayers, income tax is already pre-filled and settled automatically. With the taxpayer’s authorisation, the State already has access to most of the information it needs for 90% or more of cases. That is where we should be heading.
Many of the areas where disputes arise are not the ones that affect most people on a daily basis. They tend to appear at specific moments — when someone sells a house, accesses a tax benefit, or when companies operate in certain regulated activities. But those are not the core of everyday taxation for most citizens.
I actually take a more optimistic view than many of my colleagues. The discourse around the “great complexity” of tax law is often more rhetoric than reality. Most tax rules are applied every single day without any problem at all — VAT, social security contributions, income tax withholdings. These mechanisms work smoothly in practice.
As lawyers, we have a professional bias. Just like psychiatrists might think everyone has a mental health issue because that’s who they see, tax lawyers tend to think every tax situation is problematic — because we only see the difficult cases. But that skews perception.
If we compare Portugal with other jurisdictions — the United States, Germany — their tax systems are not necessarily simpler. In some respects, they are far more complex. In Portugal, many areas of tax law are relatively stable and well understood.
That doesn’t mean there are no problems. There are niches of real complexity, especially around tax benefits, where political compromises and successive legislative changes have created fragmented regimes. But those are specific areas, not the system as a whole.
SECTION 7 — New Business Models, Investment, and Talent
Isabel:
How do you see the impact of new business models — such as e-commerce, digital platforms, startups, and crypto-assets — on tax policy? To what extent should the State intervene and regulate these activities?
João:
I think the State should, above all, encourage new forms of economic activity. In that respect, I believe Portugal has sometimes set a poor example.
Take, for instance, recent proposals to restrict access to certain tax incentive regimes that were fundamental in allowing Portuguese companies — often highly leveraged — to access capital, including through investment funds. I view very negatively any attempt to limit incentives that were working and that the Ministry of Finance itself had previously recognised as effective.
Portugal needs to make a technological leap, and that leap can only happen with investment. That investment must come primarily through equity, not debt. When the State withdraws or weakens mechanisms that support equity investment, it sends the wrong signal.
Of course, new types of investment raise new questions. Crypto-assets are a good example. They require the Tax Authority to rethink its approach, and we’ve already seen some evolution in that regard, including binding rulings on crypto-asset exchanges that are quite interesting.
But if Portugal wants to position itself competitively, it needs to do more. In particular, it needs clear and attractive rules on equity-based incentives, such as stock option plans. These are essential for founders, executives, and highly qualified workers. If we want to attract capital and talent, we need predictable taxation and the ability for people to share in the upside of successful companies — as happens in most of the jurisdictions we compare ourselves to.
Too often, we see governments advance and then retreat, creating uncertainty. Reconciling technological innovation with regulation is not about having rules that only favour capital or only favour labour. Companies do not exist in the abstract — they are made up of investors, workers, and managers. Policy needs to speak to all of them. And in this area, Portugal has not always set the best example.
SECTION 8 — Teaching Law in the Age of AI
Isabel:
You are a tax lawyer and an arbitrator, but also a university professor. How do you assess Portugal’s competitiveness in Europe, and how will these new paradigms and ongoing reforms influence the way future generations of professionals are trained?
João:
I think this is a question to which no one really has a definitive answer. Everyone who teaches today lives with a certain level of doubt about how best to do it.
The emergence of generative AI changes everything. And this applies not only to tax law, but to all areas of law. In this context, it no longer makes much sense to ask students to perform tasks that machines can already do — for example, calculating a personal income tax return. AI systems do that increasingly well, and they will only improve.
What still matters — and what matters more than ever — is critical thinking. The ability to discuss grey areas, to analyse an authorising statute whose purpose is unclear, or to interpret a tax benefit when the legislator’s intention is ambiguous. These are the skills we should be training students to develop.
That said, this is not easy. Today’s students grew up during the pandemic and in a fully digital environment. Training them to focus, to reason critically, and to sit with uncertainty is a greater challenge than it was for previous generations. But this is precisely the reflection that many of us in academia are engaged in right now: how to keep classes meaningful and engaging, and how to prepare jurists with sound judgment in a world where certainty is often only one click away.
SECTION 9 — Political Debate and Societal Change
Isabel:
Shifting the angle slightly, João, you’re often invited to comment on public affairs. How do you assess the current state of political debate in Portugal, and what changes would you like to see?
João:
I think political debate today has a problem that is not unique to Portugal — it exists everywhere. What tends to capture people’s attention is what is immediate, sensationalist, exaggerated. Political debate has started to resemble sports commentary.
This isn’t limited to politics; it reflects a broader transformation in society. Over the last ten to fifteen years, our attention spans and cognitive habits have changed significantly. None of us is immune to that. Political discourse naturally follows the same logic: shorter formats, stronger language, more emotional reactions.
Long, reflective debates — two hours discussing ideas — appeal to fewer and fewer people. Meanwhile, political movements and figures that thrive on immediacy and provocation gain visibility. That is not something that can be reversed overnight, and I don’t think moralising about it is very useful.
What I do think is important is that public service media, especially public television and radio, continue to offer alternative formats: slower, more thoughtful, less confrontational spaces for discussion. They may be less exciting, even a bit boring, but they matter.
Thinking carefully is demanding. It consumes energy. And it’s far less immediately gratifying than watching a short video or some AI-generated spectacle. But it is essential if we want a healthier public debate.
Isabel:
And looking ahead, how do you imagine life will be for younger generations — for your own children, for example? Will they face greater opportunities, or greater challenges?
João:
I think it will be both.
They will have many more tools than we ever had. Artificial intelligence will make many aspects of life easier in ways we can’t yet fully imagine. But there is a real risk that a lack of critical thinking, reduced attention, and a weakening of human relationships could make lives poorer and less fulfilling.
The role of adults — parents, teachers, educators — is to show both paths. We shouldn’t pretend that our children will live without technology or without constant change; that would be naïve. But we also shouldn’t ignore the risks. Helping younger generations navigate this tension is one of the great challenges ahead.
SECTION 10 — Convictions, Perspective, and Intellectual Moderation
Isabel:
Is there any core conviction you’ve held over the course of your professional life that has changed significantly over time?
João:
Honestly, I don’t think so. At least, not in any fundamental way.
I don’t have many extreme convictions. I’ve always tried to look at issues from multiple angles, and to remain open to different arguments. If a question were simple, it would already be resolved — it wouldn’t still be a matter of debate.
That way of thinking means that I often end up being criticised from both sides. Some people think I’m too committed to one position; others think I’m not committed enough. But that doesn’t bother me. It’s part of my identity.
I don’t believe in absolute truths. I try to understand the reasoning behind different positions and accept that most of the issues we deal with — in law, in politics, in society — are genuinely difficult. That approach may not make you popular with people who prefer clear-cut answers, but it’s the only one that makes sense to me.
If anything has changed over time, it’s perhaps a movement away from naïveté — but not toward cynicism. I don’t think I was ever particularly naïve, and I don’t feel I’ve become more cynical either. I’ve simply become more aware of how complex things really are.
SECTION 11 — A “Good Idea for Justice” & Closing
Isabel:
We have a tradition on PodCAAD. At the end of each episode, we ask our guests to share one good idea for justice. What would yours be?
João:
I’ve said this publicly many times, and I’ll say it again. I firmly believe that justice improves when the people who make it work are able to see issues from more than one side.
I like justice systems that combine career judges with judges who come from outside the judiciary. I like systems where people can enter the judiciary early in life, but also later, after other professional experiences. I like the idea of a tax administration that usually defends itself in court, but that — in specific cases — can also hire external lawyers, as the State does in other areas. Tax law is an exception in this regard, and I think that exception deserves to be questioned.
I know this idea is sometimes criticised. People say it’s a step towards privatising justice. But that’s not what I’m arguing. I’m talking about incentives — including emotional and cognitive incentives.
Most tax lawyers always stand on the same side of the barricade: they never defend the State. That inevitably shapes how they think and how they perceive reality. In private law, this balance exists naturally: sometimes you represent the buyer, sometimes the seller. In administrative law, the same often happens. In tax law, much less so.
I think justice gains when professionals are exposed to different perspectives. CAAD has helped in this respect, because arbitrators are placed in a position of impartiality. But outside arbitration, the system is still quite rigid.
We shouldn’t look suspiciously at people who, over the course of their professional lives, perform different roles within the justice system. On the contrary, that circulation of experience should be welcomed. It reduces dogmatism, enriches understanding, and ultimately leads to better decisions.
Isabel:
Thank you very much, João, for joining us.
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