THE FINANCE Ministry has conceded that the time period for tax relief that is provided to recipients of government investment incentives might be increased from five years to 10 years. The Economy Ministry is planning to push for this longer period of time in a draft revision to Slovakia’s investment assistance law, the SITA newswire reported.
The Finance Ministry said that in principle it can foresee this as a possible step as it believes this form of tax relief imposes the smallest load on public funds from among all kinds of fiscal stimuli, but added that its final position will be decided only after a set of proposals to improve the business environment have been reviewed.
The Finance Ministry also suggested that the duty to deduct tax losses during the period of tax relief should be preserved, adding that the state will provide subsidies for purchase of long-term tangible or intangible assets only in exceptional cases, namely for strategic projects.
The Economy Ministry wants to extend this stimulus provision to small and medium-sized businesses and has suggested that the minimum investment level should be cut in half and that for investment in technology centres, the minimum level of assets should be reduced to €500,000.
