THE ECONOMY Ministry sees space for re-evaluation of the country’s tax system, compulsory social and health-care insurance contributions and other aspects of the compulsory insurance burden in an effort to improve Slovakia’s business environment. Such a step will have to first be supported by favourable developments in general government finances, the SITA newswire reported.
According to the ministry’s Report on the Situation of the Slovak Business Environment, the total burden of the system of taxes, insurance premiums and other payments is perceived as heavy by business entities all over the world.
“In Slovakia too, a portion of entrepreneurs submit proposals particularly aimed at reducing the burden of compulsory insurance contributions,” SITA wrote, quoting from the report. “In the times with impacts from the crisis, there is no space for such a solution.”
The UNITAS programme that will introduce an integrated financial system with unified collection of taxes, customs duties and social and health insurance contributions by the end of 2013 should offer space for a potential change to he social and health insurance burden.
The ministry also wants to focus attention on improving enforceability of laws and better regulation and is suggesting improvement in the efficiency of arbitration courts to improve the enforceability of the law. It also wants to eliminate negative impacts from legislation on the business environment and lower the administrative burden on entrepreneurs.
The ministry also mentioned some other persistent problems of the business environment in Slovakia in the report such as legislation changing too often and being adopted with insufficient analyses of its impacts on the business environment as well as lack of funds to develop new businesses. The business environment also suffers from regional deficits in infrastructure, a high administrative burden, a low level of e-government services, and cronyism and corruption. Electronic public procurement would be a way to eliminate the problem of corruption, the report noted.
