BRATISLAVA, December 1, (WEBNOVINY) — The excise tax on beer will not go up next year. On Wednesday, the lawmakers did not back the Cabinet’s proposal to increase the excise tax rate on beer. 73 deputies voted for the draft, which, according to Finance Minister Ivan Miklos had political support, while 66 voted against it. Within the ruling coalition, four KDH deputies did not back the draft legislation and refrained from voting.
In the plenum, opposition deputy Jan Burian (SMER-SD) was one of the draft’s critics. According to him, the change would increase the costs of companies, but also citizens. According to him, the draft amendment on excise tax on beer is another piece of legislation in a series that increase prices and chaos. Finance Minister Ivan Miklos reacted by saying that the government has to raise excise taxes in order to pay the account left by the previous government led by Robert Fico.
The Slovak Beer and Malt Association protested the original intention of the finance department to increase the excise tax on beer by 49 percent with a petition against discrimination of Slovak beer, supported by 173,000 people. The petition was also delivered to parliament, where lawmakers discussed it at a session of the Parliamentary Committee for Finances and Budget.
The coalition deputies proposed a compromise solution based on which the basic tax rate in large breweries would go up by 27 percent. Two lower rates were proposed depending on the production volume of smaller brewers
Deputy for the coalition member SDKU-DS Ivan Stefanec perceives the result of the vote on increasing the excise tax on beer as a shaft by the KDH. According to him, the topic was subject to a long discussion and led to a consensus of the parties. “Deputies for the KDH did not support the draft, which I consider a shaft on the part of the coalition partner,” said Stefanec shortly after the vote. He expects KDH to propose a solution to this situation.
Leader of the KDH party Jan Figel commented that he was surprised by voting of four of the party’s deputies. He said that he did not know about their decision in advance.
According to spokesman for the Finance Ministry Martin Jaros, representatives of the coalition quartet will talk about the next steps at an extraordinary Coalition Council meeting, convened by Prime Minister Iveta Radicova for the afternoon. He added that the Finance Ministry will continue to strive to reduce the deficit of public funds and the Coalition Council should discuss this topic.
On the other hand, Executive Director of the Slovak Beer and Malt Association Roman Sustak welcomed the result of the parliamentary vote. “We were hoping that there would be no increase, or only a minimal one,” said Sustak, adding that the proposal of the Finance Ministry to increase the excise tax on beer came at a very bad time, while the proposed percentage was very high, in spite of the agreed-upon compromise.
SITA