ABSTRACT
The burden of taxation in Portugal fell on the mass consumer, direct taxes were low, and tax evasion was pervasive. In 1959 Portugal joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and in 1960 it established the Bank for Economic Development and committed to European Free Trade Association, and two years later to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The IMF, the World Bank, and Washington were pressuring Portugal, Spain, and Greece to liberalize their economies and open them more to foreign investors. As the government in Lisbon was drafting a Six-Year Development Plan the State Department lobbied to have Portugal join the International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Though Lisbon's center-left coalition agreed to IMF austerity and a pro-western orientation, it also acknowledged that it must lessen its preponderate dependence on the west by diversifying commercial relations with Eastern Europe and the Third World.
