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Analysts: Banks and Their Clients Shouldn't Pay For Politicians' Incapability
Saturday 16 Octtber 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, October 16 (TASR) - Bank clients, as well as banks themselves, should not pay the price for politicians' bad management of public finances, think bank analysts approached by TASR.
At the same time, the analysts point out that an extraordinary taxation of banks and financial institutions, as proposed by opposition Smer-SD as a counterpart to Government's austerity package, could puzzle investors and disadvantage domestic companies to the international ones. Fico thinks that with an additional taxation of banks, no raising of consumer taxes or VAT will be necessary.
INESS think tank analyst Juraj Karpis claimed Smer-SD chair Robert Fico's proposal is an illogical measure. "It is not clear why the incapability of politicians to adapt public expenses to the dropping revenues should be paid for by bank sector and its clients. Slovak bank sector is not responsible for the crisis and in addition - in contrast to other EU countries - it did not need the bailout paid from public finances," said Karpis.
Volksbank's chief analyst Vladimir Vano pointed out that in the eyes of foreign investors, such measure could evoke doubts concerning the stability of a tax system as well as whether such similar step of tax increase couldn't be taken in another branches. "At the same time we cannot forget that since (the bank sector) is a service sector, the advantage of the international competition active in Slovakia could be a result of such measure," he explained.
According to Slovak Statistic Office, the total revenues of financial and non-financial corporations in Slovakia reached €5.15 billion in 1H10. From this sum, the revenues of the financial institutions were almost €392 million, also approximately 7.7 percent.
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