Final Word from Tuesday, February 28, 2017

While Bohuslav Sobotka is boisterously labeling anyone who earns more than Kč 50,000 per month "rich," Andrej Babiš is placidly making plans to hit some of the country's wealthiest people and biggest foreign investors where it really hurts. He told Právo 10 days ago that banks should be forced not to send dividends abroad, and then on Sat. he told the same newspaper that the way to prevent money from being expatriated by corporations is for the regulatory bodies to function properly. This presumably means the CNB for finance, ČTÚ for telecoms, ERÚ for energy, SÚKL for drugs and ČOI for retail. Babiš's own finance ministry isn't technically a regulatory body in this same sense, but according to HN, it has issued nearly Kč 100m in fines in the past year merely for violations to the invoice-matching system. Imagine what Babiš could do for the state budget if, as PM, he undertook to fine utilities and other regulated entities with the same verve. [Czech Republic telecommunications tax proposal income corporate sector]