BRATISLAVA, June 1, (WEBNOVINY) — The opposition deems the government’s consolidation proposals that increase the tax burden on businesses and citizens be to fraud on decent people, businesses, and the entire middle class, since Prime Minister Robert Fico wants to fill state coffers from their money. KDH Chairman Jan Figel is calling on the Cabinet to first quantify how much more it would collect by improved effectiveness of VAT collection and only then propose to raise taxes and levies.
„The government fears spending cuts. Unreasonable tax repression leads to economic recession,“ Figel said at a press conference on Friday. KDH, he said, is refusing to shift the burden on the shoulders of citizens. In his opinion, the government can collect a better part of the reported 1.5 billion euros it needs to consolidate the budget next year by better collection of VAT, where the overall estimated tax evasion last year was 2.3 billion euros. More savings are possible by more effective management of the state. „KDH Chairman Jan Figel has shown to Prime Minister Fico that it was possible to achieve considerable savings in the construction of highways. The government still has huge reserves,“ said party vice-chairman Julius Brocka. Figel also urged the government to carry out an in-depth revision of approximately 800 public and subsidized organizations, many of which are devoted to duplicate identical activities.
„The Prime Minister quantifies how much he would squeeze out of the middle class, but says he cannot quantify what he would take away from the big and powerful. Is it just fun? Doesn’t the government mean it seriously with better tax collection? Or will the effect be 1.1 billion euros that would be allocated for projects for the oligarchs? “ asked independent deputy Daniel Lipsic. He too also believes that if the state performed its tasks well, if tax collection improved, public administration became more efficient, it would not be necessary to increase taxes and levies.
As its contribution to the consolidation package, the opposition SDKU-DS submitted to parliament its draft amendments to two laws, which would save the budget some 50 million euros. „We have a whole layer in society, which makes a living of welfare. We need to fix this, we should only pay full parental allowance to people who have expressed at least a hint of willingness to work,“ said SDKU Chairman Pavol Freso. In his view, this is basic fairness so that the government did not have to save on working people. According to their proposal, only parents would be eligible to the full amount of parental benefit, of whom at least one has worked at least 270 days over the past four years, or worked at least 180 days and further 90 days attended activation works. Parents who would not meet the conditions, would receive parental allowance halved. „We are addressing this problem, because it is very troubling for the people,“ said Freso. He believes the government can immediately adopt this proposal. „It will be very difficult to refuse,“ he said.
SITA