Opposition criticises Labour Minister's progressive taxation proposal

The opposition has criticized the proposal of Labour Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Marian Jurečka to introduce progressive taxation, following comments he made in an interview with the daily newspaper Právo published on Saturday, in which he said he wants to propose the introduction of a temporary solidarity tax for high-income taxpayers.

In CNN Prima News' Partie plus programme on Sunday, vice-chairman of the ANO party Radek Vondráček said this would mean going back on the Together coalition's election promise not to raise taxes, and that in his opinion, Prime Minister Petr Fiala should have spoken out after Jurečka's statement to reject the tax increase. The Freedom and Direct Democracy party chairman Tomio Okamura said his party rejects the idea of tax increases for Czech citizens and companies, and the introduction of progressive taxation was also rejected by deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Jan Skopeček. He noted that there is no mention of raising taxes in the government's program statement and that people with above-average incomes already pay higher taxes. He added that the problem with Czech public finances lies with expenditure, not with income.