Final Word from Wednesday, March 3, 2010
There's really no such thing as a "fair" tax, given the amount of theft and waste in the public-sector budgets. Taxpayers always get back less collectively than they put in. It's possible, though, to reduce the degree of unfairness by eliminating tax breaks that grossly favor certain individuals or groups over others. If Czech politicians acted in the interest of fairness and reason in addressing the hot issue of employee benefits, the transportation strike planned for tomorrow could be avoided. Free vacations to sunny destinations and multimillion-crown life-insurance policies shouldn't receive special tax treatment, but it's quite reasonable for a company to be able to provide simple meals or the products it produces to employees at a discount without making a big tax issue out of it. Why can't ODS understand this? It's promising low taxes, less bureaucracy and a "return to our roots" in its Vision 2020, but its vision for employee benefits is to squeeze out a few extra crowns of VAT every time a worker buys fried cheese in the company canteen.[Czech Republic value-added tax]
Glossary of difficult words
fried cheese - a traditional Czech meal;
to put in - to contribute (pay in tax);
grossly - glaringly obviously or flagrantly;
to squeeze out - to extract;
canteen - a restaurant provided by an organization for its employees.