A Yediot Achronot economic reporter revealed that senior economists in the Finance Ministry opposed the taxes on disposable items and sweetened drinks but succumbed to the pressure of Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman who wanted “to teach a lesson to the Chareidi public.”
The report by the senior journalist, which listed a number of his reservations about the state budget approved last week, revealed the dubious logic of the taxes on plastic disposables and sweetened drinks.
“The third reservation is on the two new taxes, the tax on plastic disposables and the tax on sweetened drinks,” he wrote. “As indirect taxes, they also contribute to inflation in an especially sensitive and regressive area: the standard of living of families from the lower echelons of society will be harmed by them much much more.”
“The leadership’s reasoning for them were based on dubious data – per capita sugar consumption and per capita plastic consumption in Israel is actually low in comparison to OECD countries.”
“The taxes, which aren’t related to the battle against the climate crisis, also complicated the life of the state revenue commissioner to such an extent that he had to guarantee the manufacturers a full refund of the ‘sugar tax’ that will be collected from natural drinks without added sugar,” he continued.
“For all these reasons, there were senior economists in the Ministry who opposed the taxes but succumbed to a minister who wanted to ‘teach a lesson to the Chareidi public.'”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
I will have a mische mesune a real jewish antisemit and pork eater
Antisemite.
Yankele1,
AS you wish. have you seen him eating pork. you have many months to ask him for mechilah
All that may be true, but he’s not doing it, Hashem is doing it and using him as an agent. Why is He doing all this? I don’t pretend to know, but I have to ask and to keep thinking about it in those terms.