The people of the rural area still well remember what the then Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas recommended when his government raised fuel taxes in 2015. Namely, he advised rural people to buy new and economical cars and stop using old machines. The new finance minister, Mart Võrklaev, is a good student and keeps the traditions of the Reform Party alive. Namely, the new finance minister gave the same “friendly” recommendation to rural people.
The reform party’s tax increases and the new car tax will hit low-wage rural people the most. Apparently, the idea of a car tax was born as a result of a discussion between politicians who were strangers, and it was not considered necessary to ask the opinion of people who deal with car sales on a daily basis. CEO of Amserv, Rene Varek, points out the fact that even without the tax, car prices continue to rise by 8-10 percent per year, and treating people with an additional tax in conditions of high inflation is simply mean.
Kaja Kallas deceived the voters
Before the elections, the Reform Party did not say anything about tax increases. After the elections, Kaja Kallas said that the Reform Party did not want to be unpopular before the elections, because that would have led to the “victory of others”. At this point, the Prime Minister is right, because in the last six weeks the Reform Party’s inflated rating has fallen like a stone, and soon we will see how many loyal supporters the squirrels who came to power with the help of lies have had. Those who would have supported the party even if the tax increases were public information before the elections.
After the election, the new government began to put together a outrageous tax increase package at the dictation of the Reform Party. The tax cluster hits rural people the hardest, i.e. those who live outside the golden circle of Tallinn and Tartu. For your information, the salary of these people is almost half that of the so-called first Estonia. With that kind of income, it is not possible to pay tax increases. All this is done to cover the 500 million Reform Party’s election promise, with which people wealthier than the average are given 700 euros of tax-free income every month.
In addition to the increase in VAT and income tax, the government wants to introduce a car tax, a public transport tax (read: abolish county free public transport) and put a serious blow to the sector and especially to rural tourism with a 140 percent increase in the VAT on accommodation. Ida-Viru’s tourism coordinator Kadri Jalonen made a quick calculation – if the VAT rate rises from 9 percent to 22 percent, the price of a room in a four-star spa in Narva-Jõesuu will be 145 euros, at the same time, the price of a room in a spa hotel in Jurmala in Latvia will be 136 euros and in Imatra in Finland 130 euros.
Local taxes do not save
The new ministers emphasize that the financial autonomy of local governments will increase and there is an opportunity to bring additional money into the budget through local taxes. Going deeper, however, reveals the bitter truth – local taxes make up a negligible part of the total budget, and I would like to see the city or municipality leader who rushes to raise local taxes in the wind of the general tax increase implemented by the Reform Party. Finance Minister Mart Võrklaev, who lives in the golden circle of Harju County, simply does not know what life is like outside the golden circles.
However, several rural municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy, and they will probably have to close rural schools, community centers and village centers in search of painful cuts. Price increases and wage increases dictated by the previous government have eaten up a large chunk of the municipal budget.
Neither the previous nor the current government led by Kaja Kallas has come to the aid of municipalities in this regard. To be honest, life in rural areas has never been of interest to the Reform Party for purely pragmatic reasons – there are simply few voters living in sparsely populated areas!
The Center Party cannot watch this with a calm heart, and our message is: “No to lies, no to tax increases by the Reform Party!”
