BRATISLAVA, September 29, (WEBNOVINY) — The proposed changes to allocation of tax revenue to local self-governments and their implications on Slovak municipalities was the topic of a meeting of President Ivan Gasparovic with representatives of the Association of Towns and Villages of Slovakia (ZMOS) headed by Jozef Dvonc. „The government is preparing laws so that we [Slovakia] get rid of debt as soon as possible and start consolidating public finances. The question is what impact will it have, if we want to do it fast and rigorously, or if we spread this over a longer period of time. Therefore, we talked about the so-called mix of taxes, where ZMOS is not fundamentally against it, but it is this time aspect that needs to be considered,” Gasparovic commented for journalists after the meeting. ZMOS is asking for a longer period of time so that the situation is resolved at least one year later, in 2012. As Dvonc said, they first want to resolve their new powers, and only then their funding.
Due to serious budgetary problems, ZMOS is preparing an extraordinary congress. „We would like to resolve them at the discussion table and contribute to consolidation of the situation. First of all, we care about citizens of this country, who have to have all basic services resulting from our original competencies secured, at which all our efforts are aimed.” He likes the proposal of the president to hold joint talks with Finance Minister Ivan Miklos in order to discuss matters before the state budget for next year is approved.
The Finance Ministry’s draft may have negative implications for towns and villages. Self-governments might get substantially less money than this year. The ZMOS chairman emphasized the need to look for joint measures and solutions as to not burden citizens.
The president and ZMOS representatives discussed also the need to adopt a new election code and new administrative and legal internal arrangement of the Slovak Republic.
According to the Finance Ministry draft the Cabinet adopted last week, the state budget should transfer to municipalities a share of revenue from a mix of taxes, including the personal income tax, excise taxes and VAT. Currently, they are financed only by a share of revenue from personal income tax. As a result of this change in 2012, municipalities would receive less than they would according to the current formula.
SITA