BRATISLAVA, February 8, (WEBNOVINY) — This year’s state budget will be short of more than 360 million euros compared with original plans. Analysts of the Finance Ministry calculated that compared with the prognosis on which the approved budget is based, more sluggish economic growth will reduce tax and levy revenue by 361 million euros. „It is caused mainly by the development in the external environment and transferring of this development to our economy and the labor market,” Finance Minister Peter Kazimir announced at a news conference on Friday.
The opposition however unambiguously sees the reasons behind the deteriorated tax and levy collection in measures introduced by the government of Robert Fico. As KDH Deputy Chairman Milan Moravcik stated at a news conference of the People’s Platform, the government liquidates sole proprietors with high levies, kills jobs with a Cuba-like Labor Code and excessively taxes businesspeople. “We urge the government of Robert Fico to fix what it spoiled in the areas of taxes, levies and labor legislation and start following policies for the people and not for its sponsors,“ he said. MOST-HID’ Ivan Svejna however expects that the situation will even deteriorate as many measures of the government came into effect only a month ago. He expects the negative effects yet to come in the future while he is convinced that even the revised prognosis will not work. Thus, he thinks that Slovakia’s obligation to squeeze the deficit below the Maastricht cap of 3 percent of GDP and subsequently cut the deficit by 0.5 percentage points on an annual basis is therefore a formal one,” thinks Svejna.
The Finance Ministry however does not give up its original goal of squeezing the general government deficit below 3 percent of GDP despite the worse outlook of tax and levy revenues. The minister believes they will negotiate this curve though it certainly is a complication. The identified shortfall should be covered first of all from the reserve created by savers’ departure from the second pension pillar. The sum is not definitive yet but Kazimir estimates it at some one quarter billion euros. Some 100 million euros should be gained by freezing of expenditures that should be selective based on negotiations with administrators of budget chapters. The government hopes to get the rest from state-run firms. „It turns out that revenues from dividends in some cases might be higher and I guarantee that we will sweep out all corners,” added Kazimir.
SITA