Brussels, 24/08/2012 (Agence Europe) - Portugal is faced with a fall in tax receipts that could force the country to adopt further austerity measures or revise its objective of reducing public deficit to 4.5% of GDP this year, a source from the Ministry of Finance told the Portuguese agency Lusa, on Thursday 23 August. According to DG Budget, tax receipts during the first half of the year were down by 3.5% calculated on a year-on-year basis, while the government was pinning its hopes on an annual rise of 2.6%. According to Lusa, this difference may not be fully corrected by end 2012 and the government will have to either adopt additional austerity measures or obtain a more flexible budgetary target from its international creditors. The “troika” (European Commission, ECB, IMF), which returns to Lisbon end August, had already revealed that the fall in tax receipts was a risk weighing on implementation of the Portuguese memorandum. (SP/transl.jl)