BRATISLAVA, March 13, (WEBNOVINY)- Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said on Slovak Television on Sunday that works on changes to payroll levies paid by self-employed persons or people with a work contract are in progress while several alternatives exist of their final solution. She said that the number of the self-employed has been on rise in regions with increasing unemployment which indicates that many people resolve in this way their employment, since there is no other possibility for them to find job. On the other hand the prime minister called attention to the fact that the self-employed pay minimum social and health insurance contributions, which reflects in the sum of their pensions which are then deeply below the set minimum.
Radicova specified that the government will either offer a certain form of write-offs to the low-income self-proprietors or their health and social insurance premiums will represent a deductible item. The prime minister also admitted bonuses for self-employed persons. “The system cannot be set to lead to unemployment but neither it can result in beggarly pensions,” she said.
The prime minister wants a public discussion on the prepared changes to payroll levies. However, she stressed that the prepared documents follow only two goals; simplification of the system and reduction of red tape.
Labor Minister Jozef Mihal however said that it was a mistake that a discussion started on draft proposals of changes to social and health insurance payments, which have leaked from the working group before they could have been fine-tuned and discussed. He underscored that the new rules will introduce justice in the system of setting the sum of payroll levies assured that any honest self-proprietor will not pay for the changes.
SITA