Monitor: Jakab: Flat Tax Is No Panacea, As Food Prices Would Rise

(JOJ 24,'Politika 24', 29 March) The opposition 'Slovakia' movement rejects further consolidation measures that would reduce people's incomes and instead wants to focus on detecting fraud and improving tax collection, 'Slovakia' MP Julius Jakab stated on JOJ 24's discussion programme 'Politika 24' (Politics 24) on Sunday. He said that a flat-rate tax promoted by the opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party is no panacea, as it would also increase the prices of basic foodstuffs from 5 percent to perhaps as high as 20 percent. According to Jakab, 'Slovakia' supports increasing penalties for tax fraud and improving detection. He claimed that during the previous government led by the current opposition, actual tax collection exceeded the forecast by €2 billion. Jakab said that extraordinary taxation of the Slovnaft refinery should be applied again, as the refinery has profited from Russian oil sold at a discount, but fuel prices in Slovakia did not seem to be lower compared to other countries. Jakab claimed the governing coalition, which has now been in power for two and a half years, has allowed Slovnaft to circumvent the tax on excess profits. Such a tax should also be imposed on arms manufacturers profiting from the war in Ukraine, while higher taxation could also apply to gambling. However, Jakab stated that the priority is to defeat Prime Minister and Smer-SD leader Robert Fico, adding that the issue of who might replace 'Slovakia' leader Igor Matovic is not important at the moment. He reiterated that the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) should form a broad coalition before the general election to defeat Fico. According to Jakab, it's the voters who will decide on the ideal partners for cooperation. "We were probably the first to state clearly who we will not form a government with, and that's the mafia. For us, that includes Smer-SD, Voice-SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and the Republika party," said Jakab. He added that he considers PS chair Michal Simecka to be a weak leader, suggesting that the position could be held by, for example, PS MP Beata Jurik or PS caucus head Zuzana Mesterova. jrg