Finance Minister proposes “super tax”

Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek has come up with a plan to simplify the collection of taxes, the daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Thursday. The plan proposes to merge tax and social insurance payments into a single tax which would be deducted from the so-called “super-gross” salary; that is, the employee’s gross salary together with compulsory social security payments by the employer. Under the current tax rates, the new “super tax” would amount to 40.2 percent of individual salaries. Mr Kalousek said the new system would make tax payments easier for both tax payers and tax collectors. The Czech Finance Minister is also considering including compulsory health insurance payments into the new tax.