THE NEW tax on financial transactions that the European Union plans to introduce might reduce the pensions of over one million of pension savers by tens of percent annually, the Hospodárske Noviny daily wrote in its May 7 issue.
The EU plans to tax, in addition to already taxed transactions, transactions with bonds and shares through which pension managers appreciate people’s savings. Thus, if people saving for their future pensions in the so-called second and third pension pillar (i.e. outside the state Sociálna Poisťovňa social insurer) earn about 2 percent annually, these gains will be reduced by the new tax.
Head of the Association of Pension Management Companies, Stanislav Žofčák, told the daily that the appreciation in the second pillar will be lower. NextFinance’s analyst Jiří Cihlář opined that people will probably lose interest in private pension savings.
Several experts agreed, as quoted by the SITA newswire, that any positive effects of the tax will be minimal, at least in Slovakia, which has no serious reason for introducing such a tax.
