IMF warns new tax raise

A document published recently says that the authorities have agreed with IMF to guarantee reaching the tax objectives and that any weakness in the reform of the energy sector will be compensated by additional fiscal measures.

The reform that the government has undertaken foresees that the sector should come out of the crisis and start covering its own expenses by 2019. Until then it will be financed by the budget based to a plan. For this year, the government has provided more than 13 billion ALL, or 1.2% of the GDP for this purpose. This number is expected to be lower in the years to come.

But if the financial deficit of the sector, its need for funding will be bigger than the pre-decided figures, the government will be forced to take additional measures by raising taxes or by cutting investments, in order to not damage the general deficit of the budget and the debt reduction program, for which the IMF seems to not accept compromises.

Constant growth of the energy price

The raise of the energy price for this year seems to have been the first step for equalizing the costs with the final prices that consumers pay. The International Monetary Fund has discovered that the government will continue raising the fees in the years to come. According to the IMF, a sudden equalization of costs would require a stronger price increase.

For this reason, according to the IMF, the authoriites plan to do this in several steps, with the first raise that entered in effect in 2015, with the energy price being unified at 9.5 ALL, while the price for businesses increased from 10% to 39%, depending on the categories.

It seems that this tendency will continue in the years to come. According to the IMF, any increase after 2015 will be followed by an increased assistance to families in need, a scheme that was used even for this year.

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