BRATISLAVA, November 25, (WEBNOVINY) — The parties of the ruling coalition approved several compromises to the originally proposed changes in the tax and levies system related to next year’s state budget. The price of compressed natural gas used as a motor fuel will rise less, some expenses in family policy will rise. The coalition also approved some compromises in the public health service and for the Nuclear Regulatory Authority. This should however not influence the proposed budget deficit. Part of the shortfall will be covered from reduced administrative costs of the Social Insurance Agency and operating costs of the Ministry of Labor that should be reallocated. Newly introduced is the additional taxation imposed on revenues from sale of emission allowances, which the previous government supposedly non-transparently and unprofitably assigned to certain companies.
“We increase the amount of funds for the Nuclear Regulation Authority, we approve a lower rate for CNG – compressed natural gas, we will not impose [payroll] levies on the contributions to the third pension pillar,” started Prime Minister Iveta Radicova, listing the mitigating measures to the original proposals after this Thursday’s Coalition Council meeting. In public healthcare, the coalition will advise the MPs to approve introducing health insurance levies from received dividends for natural persons; instead of a general pardon, interest rate will be limited to a maximum of a hundred percent of the principal. Payments for state insureds should not change compared to the original Cabinet proposal.
The coalition partners agreed on delaying the duty for merchants to start using cash registers with a fiscal memory by one year, compared to the originally proposed two years. Regarding taxes, the MPs were advised to approve increasing the excise tax on beer for small breweries by 22 percent and for 27 percent for large breweries, while the original plan was to increase the beer tax by 49 percent for all types of breweries. According to Radicova the coalition also advises to approve modifying the maternity and parental benefits.
In spite of these decisions, Minister of Finance Ivan Miklos believes that the boundaries of the budget will not change. “The overall frameworks of the budget stay unchanged. The deficit of public finances should stay below 5 percent of GDP,” he said. The measures proposed by the coalition should be covered by reducing administrative expenses of the social insurance agency by 4 million euro, reducing the operating and capital expenditures of the Ministry of Labor by 6 million euro and shifting the 14 million euro for building the national ice hockey stadium in Bratislava from 2011 to this year.
The proposed 2011 state budget and the general government budgets for 2011 to 2013, as well as draft legislation associated with them, are to be discussed at the next Parliament session which is starting on November 30. The proposed state budget expects a 3.8 billion euro deficit: revenues are planned to be 13.1 and expenditures 16.9 million euro. Overall budget deficit should reach 4.9 percent GDP, what would mean reducing the deficit by almost three percentage points compared with this year.
SITA