Jakab: House Finance Committee to Be Convened over Problems with Tax Collection

Bratislava, 15 January (TASR) – Due to the current government's consolidation measures, tens of thousands of sole traders are cancelling their licences, while tax fraudsters are having a great time robbing Slovakia, as evidenced by a record shortfall of €1.8 billion in expected amount of tax collected, opposition 'Slovakia' party representatives told a press conference on Thursday. The party added that with support from the entire opposition, it plans to convene an extraordinary session of the House finance committee. It expects Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky (Smer-SD) and Financial Administration head Jozef Kiss to attend the session and explain the situation. MP Julius Jakab ('Slovakia'-'For the People' caucus) said that while the governments of former Prime Minister Igor Matovic always collected more in taxes than planned, even during major crises, the current government has been completely failing in this regard. "I'm talking about €1.8 billion that this incompetent government led by Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) and Kamenicky has stripped us of. This is an unbelievable amount of money. They're saying that they're going to consolidate, people are already facing the third consolidation round, and yet money is slipping through their fingers in massive tax fraud," stated Jakab. He stressed that consolidation, among other things, has brought a significant increase in costs for sole traders, whose number, according his calculations, fell by 24,000 last year. Recently, hundreds of sole traders are being taken off the register every day, he added. "We warned about this months ago, when the current government failed to save on itself, but the only thing that it's managed to do is to come up with another consolidation package that is massively affecting sole traders," said Jakab. jrg/df