Universal employment: in Belarus the “decree on parasites” was abolished. The tax for parasites was abolished. Now they will pay full utilities? The law on parasites in Belarus has been adopted
Which provides for measures to promote employment of the population. The document is aimed primarily at intensifying the work of government authorities to provide maximum assistance to citizens in finding employment, stimulating employment and self-employment of the population. This was reported by the presidential press service.
For these purposes, the Decree entrusts the Government with the tasks of establishing forecast indicators in the field of promoting employment and a list of territories with a tense situation in the labor market, monitoring, assessing the quality and availability of services in the field of promoting employment.
In turn, local authorities will provide individual work with citizens on the ground when carrying out work on their employment and resocialization of persons leading an antisocial lifestyle. In addition, regional and Minsk City Councils of Deputies will be able to additionally allocate local budget funds for the implementation of measures to promote employment in areas with a tense situation on the labor market.
The new Decree did not include provisions on collecting a fee from able-bodied non-working citizens to finance government spending. At the same time, persons who were previously recognized as payers of this fee are exempt from paying it.
The decree provides for a conceptually different approach aimed at stimulating able-bodied non-working citizens to obtain legal employment. It is provided that from January 1, 2019, such persons will pay for state-subsidized services at their full cost. The Government has been instructed to determine a specific list of such services.
The key role in organizing work to implement the norms of the Decree is assigned to local authorities. For this purpose, it is envisaged that local executive and administrative bodies will create permanent commissions, the main tasks of which are to assist citizens in finding employment.
The commissions will include deputies of all levels, specialists from local authorities, as well as representatives of public associations. Commissions created at the district level will, as a rule, be headed by the chairmen of the Councils of Deputies.
The decree gives the commissions broad powers, including making decisions on releasing for a certain period of time able-bodied citizens not employed in the economy from the obligation to pay for services at full cost if they have a difficult life situation.
To implement the Decree, the Government will adopt a number of resolutions, which will, among other things, determine the procedure for classifying able-bodied citizens as not employed in the economy, the list of services provided to these citizens at full cost, the procedure for calculating fees for these services and other issues.
In addition, it is envisaged that the Government will take measures aimed at intensifying preventive work with able-bodied non-working citizens leading an antisocial lifestyle; activities of tax authorities to identify and tax hidden income of individuals.
The decree comes into force after its official publication.
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Over the weekend, the largest protests in recent years took place in Belarus, which the authorities did not disperse. The reason was the “decree on parasites”, the economic benefits of which are not obvious, economists say
(Photo: Sergey Gudilin for RBC)
On Monday, February 20, the deadline for paying the fee to finance government spending for 2015 expires in Belarus. This fee is called the “tax on parasitism” in the Belarusian media. It was established by Decree No. 3 “On the Prevention of Social Dependency,” signed by President Alexander Lukashenko on April 2, 2015. The main goal of the decree is to stimulate the working population to work and prevent social dependency, recalls the BelTA agency.
Rallies against the decree
The tax office began sending out notices of the need to pay the fee in January 2017. This must be done by anyone who worked less than 183 calendar days in 2015. A total of 470 thousand notices were sent, BelTA said in a statement. Dissatisfaction with the decree brought hundreds of citizens of the republic onto the streets, Belarusian opposition media reported.
The first rally against the “decree on parasitism” took place in Minsk on February 17, and up to 3 thousand people took part in it. This was the first mass rally since December 2010, when a protest against the results of the presidential elections, won by Alexander Lukashenko, took place in the Belarusian capital. That action was harshly dispersed by the authorities. Six years later, the march and rally in Minsk took place without arrests, although the actions were not coordinated with the city authorities. The procession and rally were called the “march of indignant Belarusians.” They were attended by two ex-presidential candidates - Vladimir Neklyaev and Nikolai Statkevich, as well as Anatoly Lebedko, the leader of the opposition United Civil Party, which is collecting signatures for the abolition of the decree. Belarusian political scientist Alexander Klaskovsky notes that the opposition wisely used the discontent of the population and managed to conduct a good campaign for the abolition of the decree.
On Sunday, February 19, rallies against the decree were held in five regional centers: Gomel, Grodno, Vitebsk, Brest and Mogilev. Deputy Chairman of the United Civil Party Vasily Polyakov told RBC that from 2 thousand to 4 thousand people took part in the action in Gomel. He explained that the organizers tried to obtain official consent to hold the action, but they were refused. However, it was decided to hold the rally anyway, since the organizers considered the refusal to be a restriction of their right to freedom of expression.
In Gomel, as in other cities, people of different ages and social status, families with small children, pensioners, and youth took part in the march, the Belarusian Partisan portal reported. Opposition paraphernalia, traditional for unauthorized actions, was almost invisible. People held signs saying “I am not a parasite” and from time to time chanted: “No to the parasite decree!” Cars passing by supported the protesters with horns.
As participants in the rallies told Radio Liberty, many of them are forced parasites because they cannot find work. Some received notifications by mistake.
The authorities' dilemma
The authorities have not yet commented on the citizens' speeches. Since Belarus began normalizing relations with Europe, they have moved from the practice of dispersing rallies and arrests to issuing fines for participation in unauthorized rallies, notes Klaskovsky. However, the political scientist noted that no fines were issued at the rallies that took place over the weekend. He explains the unusual softness of the authorities both by Minsk’s desire to continue rapprochement with the European Union, which requires improving the country’s image, and by the fact that those who are accustomed to being considered Lukashenko’s electorate came to the rallies - not the usual opposition activists, but the middle class and ordinary workers. The shares, according to Klaskovsky, have become a big headache for the top Belarusian leadership.
“The authorities are now choosing between bad and very bad. If they start to disperse rallies, then it is unknown what consequences this will lead to,” Polyakov believes. In his opinion, the Belarusian authorities remember well the actions of President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, when the dispersal of rallies provoked larger mass protests.
It is difficult to predict how the authorities will behave in the future, says Klaskovsky: Alexander Lukashenko was the author of the decree, he spoke out in its defense more than once, he cannot refuse it, otherwise he will lose face. “A person who can work is not disabled, he must work, earn for himself, his family, his children and benefit his country by paying taxes,” the President of Belarus previously explained the need to introduce a tax.
Polyakov from the United Civil Party suggests that the decree “will not be canceled, but buried.” In his opinion, people will definitely not receive notices for 2016.
However, activists intend to continue protests. If the decree is not canceled, a new rally will be held on March 25.
Participants in an unauthorized protest in Minsk (Photo: Sputnik / RIA Novosti)
How much does parasitism cost?
A fee for “parasitism” (officially a fee to finance government spending) was introduced by decree of Alexander Lukashenko in April 2015. The authorities motivated this step by the fact that able-bodied citizens of the country have a constitutional obligation to participate in financing government spending on healthcare, education, housing and communal services, public transport, etc. by paying taxes, duties and other payments. Belarusians who do not participate in financing are paying the 2015 fee for the first time and must do so until February 20, 2017.
Amount of payment - 360 Belarusian rubles.(near $190 at the current rate); for 2016 the collection will be already 420 rub. For non-payment or incomplete payment, a fine is imposed in the amount of two to four “basic values” (in 2017 this corresponds to 46-92 Belarusian rubles.) or administrative arrest with mandatory involvement in performing community service.
Economists criticize
The Ministry of Taxes and Duties of Belarus sent a total of about 470 thousand notices to citizens to pay the fee. It turns out that the maximum local budgets (the collection is credited there) could collect 169 million Belarusian rubles from the “parasites.” ($90 million). This would make it possible to finance only about 1% of the expenditures of local budgets in Belarus in 2016, according to data from the Ministry of Finance of the Republic. But in reality, fees from “parasites” will be much less: a week before the deadline, only 10% of payers paid the fee, the Ministry of Taxes and Duties reported on February 13. In addition, some “parasites” will be exempt from payment: citizens who actually stayed on the territory of Belarus for less than 183 days in 2015 will not be required to pay the fee. Many Belarusians live most of the time in Russia, but since there are no border controls, local tax officials cannot track border crossings. It is enough for such citizens to confirm their absence from the territory of Belarus for a period of more than six months in order not to pay the fee, local authorities assure.
Belarusian economists doubt that the fee will even cover the state’s costs of collecting it, writes the Belarusian News portal.
There is no economic logic in the levy for “parasitism,” says Dmitry Kruk, a researcher at the Belarusian Economic Research and Educational Center (BEROC). According to him, the fee was introduced in order to solve the problem of non-payment of taxes in the border regions, in particular Brest and Grodno. In these regions, "quite a large number" of people engaged in cross-border trade while remaining in the informal sector, he says. In fact, the fee affected other categories of citizens, and most of those for whom it was intended found a way not to pay it, the economist points out. At the same time, it is not clear from what resources the truly unemployed should pay the fee. $190 is a considerable amount in a country where the average nominal salary is 800 rubles. ($427) in the capital or 683 rubles. ($364) outside Minsk and the Minsk region (Belstat data for December 2016).
The authorities estimated the number of “parasites” at 470 thousand people. This is more than ten times more than the number of officially registered unemployed (43.3 thousand at the end of 2015, according to the latest available data). At the same time, registered unemployed people are not required to pay the fee. But in Belarus, few people register with the employment authorities: unemployment benefits are “purely symbolic,” but the recipient has quite serious responsibilities, explains Kruk. For example, sooner or later such a citizen is obliged to agree to an existing vacancy; in addition, he may be sent to community service.
: shadow tax (Venice), tattoo and piercing tax (Arkansas, USA) or TV tax (Germany). Despite the outright absurdity, these taxes exist in the countries of the so-called. “first world” with a relatively stable level of well-being and does not apply to all categories of the population, because not every resident of Arkansas wears tattoos and piercings, or not every Venetian is the owner of a cafe or store that is subject to a shadow tax. But residents of the geographical center of Europe were a little less fortunate.Decree No. 3. Tax on "parasitism".
On April 2, 2015, the President of Belarus signed Decree No. 3 “On the Prevention of Social Dependency,” which was popularly called the “Decree on Parasites.”This legal act was issued in order to stimulate able-bodied citizens to work and ensure that they fulfill their constitutional obligation to participate in the financing of public expenditures - reports text legislative act . Pensioners, incapacitated citizens, persons under 18 years of age, and disabled people are exempt from paying the “tax on parasitism.” The fee is collected from citizens of the Republic of Belarus, as well as stateless persons and foreign citizens permanently residing in the territory of the Republic of Belarus, who“did not participate in financing government expenditures” (i.e. they didn’t work), or did so for less than 183 days. The fee is 20 basic units per tax period (per calendar year), that is, approximately 236 USD at the exchange rate as of January 2017. Non-payment or incomplete payment leads to a fine of 2 to 4 basic units, or administrative arrest with prosecutionsocially useful work. Arbeit macht frei!!! It is noteworthy that the labor of such a person detained for tax evasion during the period of administrative arrest, taking into account the funds that the state spends on maintenance,depreciates by half. By January 2017 tax office counted approximately 400 thousand “parasites”, which is not so small for a country with a population of approximately 9.5 million people. While some developed capitalist countries are going to introduce an “unconditional basic income”, which in its essence does not lead to a solution to the problem, but only helps to smooth out capitalist contradictions, but against its background, levying a tax on the unemployed looks truly medieval obscurantism.
Participation in financing government spending and VAT
What determines the relevance of the problem posed? After all, it would seem that Decree No. 3 was adopted almost two years ago and, according to some, expresses the Soviet principle “he who does not work, does not eat.” Let's start with the fact that Article 56 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, which is indirectly referenced in Decree No. 3, indeed obliges citizens to participate in financing government spending, but in fact citizens already participate in financing government spending by paying VAT and other hidden taxes.
Article 56. Citizens of the Republic of Belarus are obliged to take part in financing government expenditures by paying state taxes, duties and other payments.
“The so-called parasites pay almost as much taxes as a working person, because they pay direct taxes - excise taxes, VAT, import duties. They make up about 2/3 of all taxes in the country’s budget,” Belarusian economist Leonid Zlotnikov comments on the situation.
The decree itself, adopted almost two years ago, actually came into force relatively recently. From November 2016 to January 2017, the number of “parasites” detected by the Ministry of Taxes and Duties increased almost 8 times. Until November, some adjustments were made to it, and a database of citizens allegedly not participating in the financing of government spending was being compiled. Immediately after the deployment of a full-scale campaign to prevent social dependency, a suicide occurred in the city of Rogachev, which had already become resonant, the reason for which was the so-called “chain letter” (as the people called the notice of the need to pay tax). The woman who lost her job was simply unable to pay the fee... and hanged herself *. In the meantime Dmitry Medvedev Alexander Lukashenko says that there is no money, but you hold on endure everything and, according to some sources, is completing the construction of his 17th residence. And this tragic incident is not the only one of its kind,On October 3, 60-year-old Aivar Yaskevich paid 360 denominated Belarusian rubles in tax for “parasitism,” and on December 6 he jumped from the 5th floor of his apartment in Osipovichi. He left a note and a receipt for payment of the “tax on parasites” on the table.It was written there : “I have never been a parasite, a rapist, a robber, I have worked honestly all my life.”
* Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus refutes He calls this information and the cause of suicide “depressive state.” You can read about how capitalism is connected with depression on the World Bank .
"Who does not work shall not eat". Capitalism and unemployment
As for those who unconditionally approve of such measures and remember the good old “who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat,” then it is worth realizing that Belarus is a country with a market economy, and the market economy was, is and will remain a companion to unemployment. Thus, in economics there is the concept of “natural level of unemployment”, and in Belarus it amounts to 6% of the total economically active population 4 491,7 thousand people, that is almostfour and a half million . It is also worth noting that the percentage of the “natural rate of unemployment” is always given by liberal (who are now the majority) economists, one might say, ideally: this is the level of natural unemployment that should be, and not the one that actually is. And of course, in conditions of economic crises, this percentage is inevitably exceeded for natural economic reasons, i.e. because of the crisis itself. Thus, even under the ideal functioning of a market economy, there will always be a certain number of citizens who will not be able to find a job and pay the “parasitism” tax.
World practice**
In Bulgaria, since the times of the People's Republic, an article has been preserved in the criminal code, which can conventionally be called “for parasitism.” For a long time now, no one has been given real prison terms for it. Bulgarian law enforcement officers use it to combat prostitution and, as a rule, the case is insignificant. fines . In other countries, where the percentage of unemployed is quite high, there are no such taxes, although in Italy the unemployed approximately 40% . In German, the phrase “refusing to work” appeared during the era of the Third Reich. This designation was used as a stigma for those who disagreed with the regime. Nazi authorities used fines for "refusal to work" to persecution their political opponents. After the war, Germany abandoned restrictions of this kind. Article 2, paragraph 1 of the German Constitution is also strictly observed with regard to the human right to work or sit with folded arms. There is no similar measure in France, where the number of unemployedofficial statistics 3.5 million. In Finland, it is even profitable to be unemployed. According to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, on average Finland spends 21 thousand euros per month on the maintenance of one unemployed person. This amount includes both the benefit itself for an unemployed Finn andvarious services provided by the state.
**According to materials.
Increased exploitation
It is obvious that the unemployment tax in Belarus has two purposes:
- Increased exploitation, and as a consequence - an increase in the profits of the state (and not only state) bourgeoisie.
- Preservation of a huge bureaucracy.
It is difficult to give other logical explanations for this. In fact, Decree No. 3 abolishes the right to an eight-hour working day, because in order to “fit into the market” and withstand competition, the worker will have to agree to the most slavish conditions of exploitation that are possible. The Ministry of Taxes and Duties does not even try hide this: “Competition has increased and people are holding on to their jobs.” The conditional “liberalization” of political life in Belarus is compensated by authoritarian economic measures. In some regions, conscientious citizens have already begun collecting signatures for the abolition of Decree No. 3. However Chartism and similar movements showed their inconsistency to him back in the 19th century. Even if the struggle is successful through collecting signatures and repealing the Decree, the natural crisis of the capitalist economy will not go away, and instead of open forced labor, we will get a daily increase in prices, tariffs, and a drop in wages, which in essence is also forced labor. The solution is not reforms, but a complete replacement of the existing system, where explicit and implicit coercion to work will disappear along with such concepts as unemployment and exploitation.
Vadim Dolinin
In Belarus, the collection of the “tax on parasitism” from citizens has been abolished. President of the Republic Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 1 “On promoting employment of the population.” According to the new document, government policy will be aimed at stimulating unemployed citizens to obtain legal employment. However, experts doubt that the country's authorities will be able to achieve the goal of universal employment - objective economic circumstances may prevent this. RT studied new methods of combating parasitism in Belarus.
- Reuters
- Vasily Fedosenko
January 25, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko No. 1 “On promoting employment of the population.” This document became the “successor” of Decree No. 3 “On the Prevention of Social Dependency,” which was popularly nicknamed “the decree on parasites.”
The new document does not involve collecting a fee from able-bodied non-working citizens to finance government spending (known in society as the “tax on parasites”). At the same time, those who were previously recognized as payers of this fee are exempt from paying it. The new concept, spelled out in Decree No. 1, provides for universal employment.
“The document is aimed primarily at intensifying the work of authorities to provide maximum assistance to citizens in finding employment, stimulating employment and self-employment of the population,” indicates the press service of the President of Belarus.
- Alexander Lukashenko
- Maxim GUCHEK
Local commissions
The entire burden of implementing the decree is transferred from tax authorities to local authorities. For this purpose, executive committees will create permanent commissions, which will include deputies of all levels, representatives of local authorities and public associations. These commissions will be headed by the chairmen of the councils of deputies.
Such commissions will have two key tasks. The first is to assist citizens in finding employment, the second is to compile lists of citizens who can, but do not want to work. From January 1, 2019, such persons will pay for state-subsidized services at full cost. The government has been instructed to determine a specific list of services. However, it is already known that unemployed citizens will lose subsidies for utility bills and will have to pay 100% for medicine and education.
Commissions of local executive committees will also decide whether the citizen really does not want to work (leads an asocial lifestyle) or whether he finds himself in a difficult life situation, and therefore may not pay social services at full cost. Also, local authorities will have to work individually with citizens regarding their employment.
At the same time, the government of the country must adopt a number of resolutions, which will, among other things, determine the procedure for classifying able-bodied citizens as not employed in the economy, a list of social services provided to these citizens at full cost, and the procedure for calculating fees for these services. Also, it is the government that must figure out how to occupy unemployed citizens in the regions - the Council of Ministers has already been ordered to set forecast indicators in the field of promoting employment.
The decree also identifies “problem territories”—depressed regions of Belarus in which there are no operating industries, and therefore no jobs outside of budgetary organizations.
Over the course of the year, the government must decide on measures for the economic development of such regions, primarily through support for local small and medium-sized businesses. In turn, regional councils of deputies will be able to additionally allocate funds from local budgets to activities to promote employment in areas with a tense situation on the labor market.
How it was
Alexander Lukashenko signed the decree “On the Prevention of Social Dependency” in April 2015. The document provided that citizens who do not work for more than 183 calendar days a year must pay 20 basic units to the budget. At that time it was an amount of 360 Belarusian rubles ($180).
At first, the public did not take the document seriously—until December 2016, when tax inspectorates sent out about 470 thousand notices about the need to pay the “tax on parasitism.”
It turned out that Decree No. 3 actually introduced a tax on the unemployed. This swept across the country in February - March 2017. Only 54 thousand people out of 470 thousand paid the prescribed amount.
On March 9, 2017, the decree was suspended, and at a government meeting, Lukashenko announced that the tax would not be collected from unemployed workers for a year. Tax authorities have been instructed to return money to those who have already paid the “tax on parasitism.” At the same time the president of all unemployed.
At the same time, a radical revision of the document began, which resulted in the appearance of Decree No. 1.
Questions remain
“The most important thing that remains unclear is how the requirement for non-working people to pay, for example, for medicine fits in with the Constitution, according to which public medicine is free for all citizens, without any differences? Or education - it turns out that a child of unemployed parents will not be accepted into a free school?” — Olga Karach, a Belarusian politician and leader of the International Center for Civil Initiatives “Our House,” noted in a conversation with RT.
She clarified that Article 41 of the Belarusian Constitution directly prohibits the use of forced labor, and this provision is contained in many international agreements that the republic has signed.
“And here, it turns out, we see forced labor. There is no clarity yet on how the government will resolve these contradictions,” Karach emphasized.
Another important question, according to experts, is how realistic it is to employ everyone. Despite the measures taken by the government, data from the state statistical agency (Belstat) show: in January - September 2017, 4,351,800 people were employed in the Belarusian economy. This is almost 65 thousand (1.4%) less than in the same period last year.
- Workers in a workshop on the territory of a plant in Belarus
- RIA News
- Evgeny Biyatov
“Employment of the population is primarily the responsibility of a particular region. And who, if not local authorities, sees the situation and has all the information in order to resolve existing issues? So, people’s employment becomes one of the most important criteria for assessing the work of local authorities,” said Irina Kostevich, Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Belarus, in an interview with the BelTA news agency.
According to her, local authorities are responsible for implementing specific measures to ensure employment of the population, “including job creation, employment assistance, retraining, and provision of temporary work.”
13.2 thousand Belarusians have still not applied for a refund of the fee paid to finance government expenditures for 2015. The total amount of tax they contributed was about 3.59 million rubles (1.75 million dollars in equivalent). According to the presidential “On Promoting Employment,” those who paid a fee to finance government spending must have their money returned.
The photo is for illustrative purposes only. Photo: Daria Buryakina, TUT.BY
Tax officials reviewed 49.5 thousand applications from Belarusians who wished to return the paid fee to finance government spending. So, in 2017, 20.5 thousand people applied for a refund, in 2018 - 27.5 thousand, and in the first half of this year - 1.5 thousand...
In total, paid taxes were returned for a total amount of 15.01 million rubles.
Let us remind you that 62.7 thousand citizens paid a fee to finance government expenses in 2015 in the amount of 18.6 million rubles.
To get a refund of the tax paid, you need to write an application to the tax office at your place of residence and provide an identification document. The tax authorities return the money either to an account in a Belarusian bank, or in cash at the Belarusbank cash desks. The money will be returned within a month from the date of application.
Tax on parasitism
Let us recall that on April 2, 2015, he signed Decree No. 3 “On the Prevention of Social Dependency,” which introduced the so-called tax on parasitism. According to it, a fee of 20 basic units had to be paid to the treasury by those who did not pay taxes at all or paid them less than 183 days a year.
In 2017, there were protests across the country against the tax on parasitism, with participants detained and tried. On March 9 of the same year, the president decided to suspend the collection of fees from “parasites” for a year.
On January 25 last year, Alexander Lukashenko issued Decree No. 1, which provided for measures to promote employment of the population. The new decree abolished the collection of taxes from those not employed in the economy, but introduced payment for some housing and communal services at economically justified tariffs: from January 1 of this year - hot water supply, and from October 1 - gas supply and heat supply.