Mladina: Government should increase personal asset taxation
STA, 28 September 2018 - The alleged economic interests are still trying to discipline the government, which will need to have exceptional skills to explain to the public that a reform of taxation of personal assets should be carried out and to eventually carry it out, the weekly Mladina says in its latest commentary.
The last to voice opposition to the government is the Fiscal Council, which has declared the coalition agreement an attack on public finances, while failing on purpose to mention all the variables that the coalition attached to almost every planned measure.
The analysis by the Fiscal Council is thus actually only a political document with a single purpose: discouraging the ministers to make any changes to the current economic system, which disproportionately burdens wages of the middle and lower class.
Capital in Slovenia is actually minimally taxed, and Slovenia is an informal tax haven of sorts. What is really exempt from taxation are personal assets, especially major assets, editor-in-chief Grega Repovž says in ‘Disciplining the Government’.
People actually know very little about taxation of personal assets. The problem is also that individuals continue to hope that one day they will have a lot of assets themselves, expressing solidarity with their future selves by opposing such taxation.
A low taxation of personal assets is a fundamental anomaly, which causes other anomalies. It is, for example, the main reason for young people not being able to get their own apartments, which indirectly affects birth rate.
It is also the reason why all rich people from Slovenia actually live here, and not in tax havens. "It is ironic that these people were crying for years about high taxation of labour. Now when labour is to get taxed lower and the revenue loss compensated with taxation of personal assets, everything is wrong."
The government is already scared of the wrath of the elite. The other problem is that they too like to be the elite a little bit. They like to go to receptions and live a comfortable life. But they should be reminded that invitations to receptions will keep coming only until they hold their posts, concludes the commentary.
Demokracija: Intellectuals force socialist thinking on Slovenians
STA, 27 September 2018 - The weekly Demokracija says in Thursday's editorial that "intellectuals" continue to force socialist thinking on Slovenians by equating public and private property in terms of "all being ours".
Commenting on philosopher Darko Štrajn's statement that the allegedly unwarranted payments made to senior staff at the Faculty of Arts are scandalous but that such things are considered normal in the private sector, Demokracija editor-in-chief Jože Biščak wonders what does the philosopher want.
"Does he want the state to define what a private entrepreneur can cash out from their company? And when? The man who is paid by taxpayers ... wants to equate unwarranted spending of public money of other people and the completely normal and justified management of someone's own money."
Too many people are infected with this kind of thinking in Slovenia and everybody would like a job in the state apparatus, because working for a private company is slavery and it would be best if the state prohibited it.
"And then we will all work at faculties of social sciences, directorates or play NGOs, we will all drink champagne with strawberries and eat chocolate cakes. Until the happy ending - in the abyss," Biščak concludes under the headline ‘Children of the Revolution’.
