Trade union: 5% health tax is eligible if the tax burden does not change – in Latvia

The Latvian Free Trade Union Confederation (LBAS) believes that the idea of ​​the Minister of Finance Jānis Reirs (JV) for a 5% health tax would be generally supported if the total labor tax burden did not change.

As reported, on Wednesday in the Latvian Radio program “Krustpunkts”, the Minister of Finance said that the possibility of introducing a health tax or health insurance in the amount of 5% is being assessed. Mr Reir emphasized that the introduction of a 5% health tax would not change the overall tax burden on labor.

As LBA public relations specialist Sanita Birkenfelde informed LETA, the idea of ​​a 5% health tax is to be supported, but still to be discussed and possibly clarified.

In his turn, the chairman of LBAS Egils Baldzēns pointed out that such a solution should definitely be discussed in the National Tripartite Cooperation Council.

“We believe that already now – with the current tax system – a solution can be found to increase funding for the health care and education sectors in connection with raising wages, in particular, these opportunities could have been implemented before the Covid-19 crisis,” Baldzens noted.

It has already been reported that, according to the Reira proposal, 5% of the health tax would be 1% of social contributions, 2% of the solidarity tax and 2% of the personal income tax (PIT).

“Everyone must participate in health budgeting, so 3% of social contributions and 2% of municipal PIT revenues will go to health. In addition, these funds will have to be earmarked as an integral part of the health budget,” Reirs said.

The Minister added that the second direction is the provision of minimum social contributions for those groups of the population who currently operate in special tax regimes, such as micro-enterprise taxpayers and the self-employed.

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