An agreement is likely to emerge between the Association of Slovak Towns and Villages (ZMOS) and Slovakia’s Finance Ministry on future distribution of taxes for municipalities, said ZMOS chairman Jozef Dvonč (the mayor of Nitra) at a press conference following an extraordinary convention of the association held on October 24, the TASR newswire reported.
According to Dvonč, municipalities will not be financed via the so-called 'tax mix' next year but via a specified share of tax collected on the incomes of individuals.
"The only way of halting this [proposed] law is during second reading [in Parliament]. The whole effort is heading towards this," said Dvonč, adding that Finance Minister Ivan Mikloš needs some space for discussing changes with coalition partners in the government.
If the proposed law is withdrawn and the old rules for distribution of taxes remain in place municipalities will have to be content with lower revenues, Dvonč said.
"The percentage most probably won't remain at the current level – that is 70.3 percent of the taxes on the income of private persons; this percentage may be reduced," Dvonč stated as quoted by TASR.
According to Dvonč, the tax mix would bring a total of €1.2 million to municipalities next year while the current rules would bring €1.4 billion. An agreement between ZMOS and the Finance Ministry may bring more than €1.3 billion.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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