Budget 2023: Staikouras – Tsakalotou clash over disposable income

Finance Minister Christos Staikouras responded to SYRIZA’s criticism of tax revenues, disposable income and private debt in his intervention in the Parliament.

You are talking about the psychology of the market, when GSEVEE itself records in its report the strengthening of the economic climate index in the first half of 2022, said Mr. Staikouras and continued: You are talking about an increase in tax revenues in 2022, when the only thing that really what is left is one and a half billion euros of VAT increase. because of accuracy. We, however, “come and return all of these revenues to society. Whatever is not permanent, we return in the form of benefits and support to society. What is permanent, we return by reducing taxes and social security contributions, permanently for the whole of society and especially for the middle class. There is not a single European country which permanently reduces taxes in 2023. Only Greece reduces the insurance contributions by 3% and abolishes the solidarity contribution for all Greeks,” said Mr. Staikouras.

On disposable income, the finance minister said it was at 33 billion euros in the second quarter of 2022, meaning “it is the highest in the last three years.” As for real disposable income, he said with 2008 basis points, 2015 was 71.62, 2016 71.62, 2017 71.35, 2018 72.12, 2019 76.13, 2020 at 73 .88 and in 2021 “is at a fifteen-year high of 79.32. “No one can triumph when disposable income is at about eighty percent of the baseline we’re rated at. [..] Nobody argues that we are not lagging behind, but neither should criticism be made for 79.32 when, consistently, during the period when all of Europe was doing well, you were at 71.62”.

Finally, regarding private debt, he said that “we are not hiding it under the carpet [..] No one can be satisfied with the increase in the private debt of the citizens. [..] But don’t come and talk about a jump in private debt, when in your days it has more than doubled in growth…”.

Commenting on the so-called Staikouras, the parliamentary representative of SYRIZA, Euclid Tsakalotos, said that the finance minister compares the period 2015-2019 with the current one, and says that we did not have the development of Europe, when “your two governments, you had dropped the income of Greeks by 24%”. He also wondered if ELSTAT is lying when it says that, between ’20 and ’21, only 7% of the Greek population saw an increase in their disposable income, 23-24% saw a decrease and the others remained stagnant. Are people seeing this increase? And why are people saying in all the polls that we can’t get by?

As for the GSBEE report, he noted its reference to the 21 largest companies, which from 1.4 billion profits in the first nine months of 2021, now have 3.7 billion. Is this because under your government entrepreneurship increased, new technologies and new products came out? asked Mr. Tsakalotos, applauded by the SYRIZA MPs.

In his reply, Mr. Staikouras said that, if Mr. Tsakalotos is referring to the opinion polls, he must also look at the indicators of the intention to vote: “So you agree that there is an overwhelming difference of the ND in all quantitative and qualitative indicators”. He also emphasized that tax reductions are not for the few, and that ENFIA benefited the residents of all of Greece: “And then you tell us about the middle class, which you overtaxed…” said the Finance Minister.

RES-EMP

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