Portugal proposes decade of tax breaks for young people to stem brain drain

A lack of affordable housing as well as high youth unemployment has led to a series of protests in Portugal. Photograph: Sopa Images Limited/Alamy

Portugal will attempt to stem the country’s brain drain by offering young people a decade of progressive tax breaks that would see them paying nothing at all in their first year of work.

The centre-right minority government of Luís Montenegro is ditching a proposed 15% cap on income tax for 18- to 35-year-olds and replacing it with a progressive scheme similar to one supported by the opposition Socialists after some last-minute wrangling.