THE OPPOSITION Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) party has proposed that self-employed individuals in Slovakia should pay an annual licence fee in advance, stating that this would improve collection of taxes and payroll levies because these would be paid at the beginning of a year rather than at the end of a tax year. The SDKÚ MPs propose that the licence fee be introduced in January 2013.
“A self-employed licence would cost €500 plus minimum levies. It would be paid annually one year in advance,” stated SDKÚ MP Ivan Štefanec at a press conference on July 23, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “This will mean the state will improve its position from the viewpoint of cash flow in advance, since up to now it waits a year until taxes are paid,” the MP added.
Representatives of the Finance Ministry responded that the proposal is almost identical with a special flat-rate tax that existed more than ten years ago that was scrapped as a non-systemic approach in 2004 when the SDKÚ was the lead party in government.
“We consider the reintroduction of licences in order to lower the administrative burden for self-employed to be unnecessary, because the flat-rate costs lower the administrative burden and in both cases [self-employed] taxpayers are not required to maintain [accounting] books,” the ministry stated, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
