“Every crisis is an opportunity to put your affairs in order, to sort out the things we’ve forgotten about for a long time. However, the current crisis also offers us a great opportunity to attract at least part of the production that the European companies will relocate from Asia. And, as per usual, if we want to benefit from this crisis, we need to do our homework and create an environment that allows it. From the measures proposed by Simič’s group, especially the ones I have highlighted, everyone would benefit. Of course, the condition is that we do this quickly, so that those who are planning to relocate their production, will be able to take us into account in their planning next year,” believes political analyst Miloš Čirič, who sees Slovenia as a land of opportunity for foreign capital.
“Why it is wise to support Ivan Simič‘s proposals: on the show Faktor (on the 30th of September), I shared the information that, after experiencing logistical problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, large European companies are considering moving ten to twenty percent of their production back to Europe. Next year will therefore be a year of opportunities for those who will be prepared,” said political analyst Miloš Čirič in his post on social media. According to him, Slovenia can be interesting for the aforementioned European countries in many ways if we remove certain obstacles. We have excellent personnel that knows how to achieve top productivity and innovation with good management and organization. Removing barriers would bring us new taxpayers, which would mean not only reducing the pressure to raise taxes for the existing taxpayers, but also more services, including those with high added value, and therefore, high wages.
“In my post, I will name a couple of obstacles that need to be removed, and which are also addressed in Simič’s proposals. The first is the time required to obtain a building permit. No serious investor will wait two years or even longer unless it is an environmentally controversial production. Minister Andrej Vizjak and his team have already taken the first steps in this direction, but they still have a lot of work to do in the areas addressed by Simić.” The second obstacle, according to Čirič, is the “social cap,” which enables the increase of salaries for the most productive staff. “The proposal that this amounts to 6,000 euros gross is, in my opinion, excellent, because it concerns the wages for the most highly productive and innovative. Those who actually pull the cart forward.” According to him, the current situation in this area is the reason why, as he has heard, we will lose the planned investment of Novartis, worth more than one billion euros for next year. The investment is supposed to move to Austria because they have a much more appropriately regulated system in this area. “If we did this quickly, we might still be able to keep Novartis. The introduction of this measure would make us more attractive to high-tech companies and highly qualified staff, which would, in turn, bring more jobs and better salaries to others.”
The third obstacle is a measure that concerns the retirees and, in fact, changes the very philosophy of looking at them. Retirees are allowed to continue working after retirement in such a way that they can receive a salary in addition to their pension. Upon retirement, their employment would automatically be terminated, and they could agree on further employment with their employer. “Simič proposes the same contributions for the contract with the pensioner, but I myself believe it to be better that the contributions are lower, and they would no longer be part of the basis. In any case, it would be good if such a contract was much more flexible so that both the needs of the employers and the employee could be taken into account.” He believes that the analyses done at BMW clearly show that seniors are great workers if the job is adapted to them. “This would reduce the need for the import of workers, which is a result of the demographic trends. But more importantly, it would change the seniors’ view on retirement because these people would continue to feel useful and included in society, which would keep them healthier. We would live longer and have a higher standard.”
We could attract rich investors from Monaco, as Slovenia is more pleasant to live in and also cheaper!
The fourth measure is the introduction of a sixth income tax bracket, with an income tax rate of 10 percent, for a tax base of over one million euros. “In practice, this means that this taxpayer would pay 486,480 euros for the first million, plus 10 percent for income over one million euros. This person would pay an amount equal to the amount paid by thousands of taxpayers! There is practically no one like that in Slovenia at the moment. This would make us interesting for people who now live, for example, in Monaco. Slovenia is a beautiful country, unlike Monaco, which is just concrete and, above all, very expensive compared to us. But it’s not just about such people moving to Slovenia and paying their taxes here.” It’s also about the fact that these people are constantly looking for business and other opportunities. And our start-ups, entrepreneurs, and others could meet with them. Fashion designers could sell them their products; they would drink our wine, visit our restaurants… “There are many other improvements like this proposed by Simič and his team; these would improve our competitiveness and make our lives easier, similar to how what happened when he introduced the informative calculation of personal income tax – at the time, he was the director of the Tax Administration. Many foreigners envy us for that,” Čirič also believes.
Everyone would benefit from the government measures
“The average American gets dizzy thinking about what awaits him when he has to fill out his tax return, which we simply get in the mail, for informative purposes. Among the measures are also those that prevent the arbitrariness and mobbing of our authorities, which represent fertile ground for corruption in their current form. But I cannot compliment everything that is written; one of the measures bothers me, even though it doesn’t affect me personally. It is the measure of the reduction of the tax base for standardized employees from 100,000 to 50,000 euros and a reduction in the percentage of standardized expenses from 80 percent to 60 percent.” Čirič sees no reason for the reduction. “And besides, I highly doubt that this measure would successfully pass through the government sieve, as the coalition agreement stipulates otherwise, and some things are supposed to improve for these taxpayers. But let me go back to the beginning.”
He believes that every crisis is an opportunity to put your affairs in order, to sort out the things you’ve forgotten about for a long time. However, the current crisis also offers us a great opportunity to attract at least part of the production that the European companies will relocate from Asia. And as per usual, if we want to benefit from this crisis, we need to do our homework and create an environment that allows it. “From the measures proposed by Simič’s group, especially the ones I have highlighted, everyone would benefit. Of course, the condition is that we do this quickly so that those who are planning to relocate their production will be able to take us into account in their planning next year. Support for the majority of Simič’s proposals is, therefore, support for creating a framework for a better life for all of us.”
The renowned political analyst Čirič also touched on the adoption of the anti-corona legislative packages in one of the spring episodes of the show Objektiv, saying that we all learned how it is done: “Every time, of course, they tried to do their best and address the problems that were the most important at that moment. Even now, things are going well. Of course, the problem is that there are some companies that actually cannot work, such as those who organize events. For them, it would most likely be necessary to ensure that not only the people, employees keep their jobs – the companies also need money for other things. The idea was to give these companies 10 percent of last year’s additional grants to help them survive. I think it would be useful if something like this was actually implemented. I really like that a solution was found for the self-employed because the situation has really been hard on them for a while.”
Domen Mezeg
