Final Word from Wednesday, July 25, 2007
ODS has fallen in the trap of promising lower taxes without having any good way to offset the decline in tax revenue. Curiously, it criticizes foreign investors who come here for either the incentives or the cheap labor, but it wants to give them (and other corporations) a cut in the income-tax rate from an already-low 24% to 19%. Large companies that are using up resources, polluting the environment, clogging up roads and exporting their products (and their profits) should perhaps be the ones paying the most tax, but ODS wants to shift more of the burden to the consumer by raising VAT. The Communist Party proposes to have a three-tier corporate tax structure: A 12-19% rate for sole proprietors, the current rate of 24% for midsize companies, and a rate of 30% for companies earning more than Kč 100m. It's a Communist proposal, which makes it immediately unacceptable to most people, but in fact it would help ODS achieve much of what it's after.[Czech Republic KSČM Marx value-added tax Vojtěch Filip]