“The law proposal was submitted three months ago by DISY, Ilias Myrianthous and Stavros Papadouris. We would like this proposal to be discussed and voted on as soon as possible
There is a submitted proposal for a law to reduce the tax on deposit interest receivable and the Government should proceed with it, say MPs, commenting on the relevant decision of the Council of Ministers.
DISY MP Savia Orfanidou, in her statements, said that the Democratic Alarm considers unacceptable the decision of the Council of Ministers to table a bill to reduce the tax on interest on deposits, at a time when there is already a proposed law tabled for exactly the same issue.
“The law proposal was submitted three months ago by DISY, Ilias Myrianthous and Stavros Papadouris. We would like this proposal to be discussed and voted on as soon as possible. We believe that this tax, which was gradually increased from 10% to 30% as a memorandum measure, should be reduced to at least 17%, i.e. the cut-off on dividends. It is noted that the state has had no income from this taxation for some years due to the zero deposit rates,” he added.
“Our proposal has nothing to do with accuracy, for which we believe the government should roll back fuel and electricity measures. Nor is it related to the high margin for interest rates, for which, in any case, we believe and have repeated many times that the banks should contribute to mitigating the consequences for borrowers and depositors. Quite simply, 30% is a particularly high cut-off, which we consider that it is time to equalize it with taxation on dividends”, he added.
The EDEK Member of Parliament Elias Myrianthous, in his statements, said that with regard to the announced decision of the Cabinet to prepare a bill to reduce the contribution for the defense of interest on deposits, “in principle we would like to express our positive approach in this direction, because we really think that deposits in Cyprus have been excessively taxed for many years”.
“At the same time, however, we had expressed many times our intention as a Parliament to help the work of the Government, any Government, through legislative proposals, which would achieve the process in their implementation”, he noted.
In this direction, Mr. Myrianthous continued, since last June they had filed a proposal for a law to reduce the contribution for defense from 30% to 17%, a proposal which was signed by both the MPs of the DISY, Stavros Papadouri from the Movement Environmentalists and by him.
“It is a simple proposal, which can immediately be discussed and voted on in the next Plenary Session of the Parliament. If there really is this will on the part of the Government and it wants to be immediately implemented, it can exactly support this effort that we have made as a Parliament and move immediately in this direction. We understand that despite the positive intentions of the Government, this process may take several months, from the point of view that the bill must be prepared, it must proceed to legal technical control at the Legal Service”, he noted.
As he said, “you realize this is a lot of time and man-hours that will be spent, while at the moment the proposal is simple, ready to vote.”
“So we call on both the Ministry of Finance and, in general, the Government itself, if it really agrees with the proposal that has been submitted since June, to proceed towards its passing and to complete the implementation of the legislation immediately”, he added. p>
The MP of the Environmentalists Movement-Citizens' Cooperation, Stavros Papadouris, said in his statements that they consider the decision by the Ministry to proceed to submit a bill as unacceptable since they have had a proposal for a law submitted for about three months.
“Let's note that this is the second time that the same thing has happened. Let me remind you that with regard to the package of measures for auctions, this package of measures of 8 proposals, two of these proposals were party proposals and not any initiative by the state itself. You are now repeating this practice since there is a proposal tabled, -which I hope will be discussed at the next meetings of the Finance Committee-, to come up with a bill, which provides exactly the same thing”, he added.
And one wonders, said Mr. Papadouris, “from the moment there is a report to the competent Committee, from the moment the debate, why are we talking about a change of the 3 proposals , will be able to be passed in a very short period of time, how is it possible to tolerate a bill that will pass through legal technical control by the Legal Service and we will delay its implementation?”.
“I hope this is the last time we will see this, otherwise if the ultimate goal of the Cabinet is to see the proposals for law that will be brought by the Parliament and the parties and simply copy them and brings as proposals of the Government itself, I think we are losing a bet”, he concluded.-
