Those concerning tax credits should hopefully be answered on Wednesday morning, when employees from the tax administration and Statec will be present to provide further details.
Ministers Xavier Bettel, Franz Fayot and Yuriko Backes introduced the measures from the Tripartite agreement to MPs on Tuesday. In particular, the focus was on policies aiming to compensate households for their loss of purchasing power.
The president of the special commission, Gilles Baum from the DP, summarised:
“Questions broadly revolved around the tax credit. This applies to everyone who is in work, not to households themselves.”
CSV MP Gilles Roth, vice president of the commission, said the CSV would take its responsibilities seriously, but some questions still need to be clarified.
“For instance, if we have two people who earn 3,000 euros each, they will get a tax credit of roughly 150 euros per month. But a single parent earning 6,000 euros receives 75 euros. You have to wonder if that’s fair.”
However, he will wait to hear the perspective of the other parties. But first up is the dialogue with the tax administration and Statec. In a release on Tuesday evening, the government laid out in detail how the measures will compensate the for the loss purchasing power of low-income residents. MP Sven Clement from the Pirate party is not fully on board yet:
“Politically it seems problematic to me that the measures also compensate high earners, when statistically speaking they are not experiencing any loss of purchasing power.”
In matters of implementation, costs and who exactly would benefit from the measures, there still remained some unclear points, said Clement.
MPs are expected to put together a list of questions for the government to answer in further meetings. There will also be explanations from other ministers, such as Claude Meisch, Corinne Cahen and Claude Turmes, about the measures their respective ministries have worked out.
