As of the beginning of May, a reduced rate of value-added tax (VAT) will apply to selected farm products sold at farms. Parliament voted on March 4 to endorse a draft amendment to the law on VAT introducing a lower, 6-percent VAT rate instead of the current 19-percent rate on selected products sold directly at farms.
The amendment was tabled by Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) deputies Vladimír Mečiar and Tibor Cabaj. Parliament passed the draft despite criticism of it by the Slovak Union of Meat Processing Companies and the Slovak Food chamber. The National Association of Employers (RÚZ) also demanded its withdrawal from the parliamentary agenda.
Independent parliamentary deputy and former agriculture minister Zsolt Simon, quoted by the SITA newswire, warned that the amendment was a populist step and that Slovakia could face action by the European Commission since it contradicts European rules by introducing different tax rates for identical products within Slovakia. The non-parliamentary Freedom and Solidarity party has also criticized the amendment. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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