14. 02. 12. - 16:19

Strache deplores soaring tax pressure on middle class

Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Heinz-Christian Strache has harshly attacked the government over its savings package.

The right-winger said during a platform discussion in Vienna, which was broadcast live by radio station Ö1, yesterday (Mon) that the various measures would increase the tax burden on labourers and the middle class. Strache underlined that Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the People’s Party (ÖVP) had stressed many times over the past months that it was their intention to lower the taxation on labour. He also claimed that Austria’s pensioners would have to face cuts too tough in the coming years because of the austerity course.

Strache argued that most cost reductions would have been unnecessary had the SPÖ-ÖVP administration carried out courageous and substantial reforms earlier on. He labelled the set of measures as a "plot to expropriate Austrians". The government coalition intends to save 26.5 billion Euros until 2016 to fulfil the budget criteria of the European Union (EU) by 2020. EU rules mean that member countries’ budget deficits must not surpass three per cent of their gross domestic products (GDPs). They should not be higher than 60 per cent of the state debt either.

Caritas Austria President Franz Küberl said yesterday people who received a pension of 1,000 Euros or less a month must benefit from stronger increases than just a compensation of the inflation in the coming years. Küberl also made clear that he would back a reintroduction of the inheritance tax if this helped to secure the funding of healthcare services in the coming years.

A fund set up by the government guarantees the financing of such activities only until 2014. SPÖ Health Minister Alois Stöger is at the ready for a continuation of talks about a reform of the public health sector with provincial political leaders, health insurance chiefs and managers of the country’s state-funded clinics.

Federal Trade Union (ÖGB) Vice President Sabine Oberhauser said yesterday her organisation generally approved the government’s set of cutbacks and increased taxes. Oberhauser also underlined that the austerity package would have featured inheritance and gift taxes were it up to the ÖGB to decide. She pointed out that the upcoming cutbacks would go hand in hand with the decision not to freeze education sector spending.

Oberhauser also stressed that the state’s funding of science and research would not shrink in the coming years. Scientists and university heads have called for significantly higher subsidies for years to ensure the quality standard of the work of teachers and lecturers and avoid that Austria dropped behind further in international comparison in this concern.

ÖVP Science Minister Karlheinz Töchterle has tried to convince the SPÖ of giving up its blockade against a reintroduction of tuition fees. Töchterle also said Austria’s public universities could be allowed to charge students amounts they considered as justified. Tuition fees were most recently effective between 2001 and 2008. Conservative politicians think that a reintroduction could solve the universities’ most urgent problems.

Meanwhile, ÖVP Finance Minister Maria Fekter defended the decision to carry out less drastic cutbacks in the public sector than initially planned. Austria’s civil servants will experience a pay freeze next year before salaries will increase by only one per cent in 2014 – given that the domestic inflation does not soar dramatically that year. Fekter told Die Presse yesterday: "Public servants are carrying an immense burden. Around 200,000 civil servants cope with cuts nearly as significantly as the austerity two million pensioners are confronted with," she said.