BSU professor: It is time to introduce “tax on wealth” in Belarus

The scandalous dean of BSU’s economic faculty came forth with a new initiative.

This time Mikhail Kavalou, already well known for his original statements and propositions, spoke in support of introducing a “tax on wealth”.

“As early as in 1995 Aliaksandr Lukashenka announced that we would be building a socially oriented market economy, - the professor reminded in an interview to Narodnaja Newspaper. - This means that the inequality between the rich and poor in Belarus is not as significant as in certain countries in the world. We almost do not have people living beyond the poverty line. By Gini coefficient (an indicator showing the degree of inequality of income distribution) Belarus is among top-10 countries of the world with the lowest difference in incomes. We are behind Denmark, Sweden and Slovenia, but ahead of Germany. It is clear that the standards of living are higher there, but the indicator of inequality between the rich and poor is lower here”.

Mikhail Kavalou emphasized that the difference between the ten percent of the most wealthy and ten percent of the poorest in our country accounts to five times, while in Russia, China, the USA this coefficient is at the level of 12-15 times. The professor claimed that the state stood on the positions of social justice, including by the means of accessible education and health care, social care payments, the system of subsidies for most important social services.

“Of course, the rich get richer here too, - he pointed out. – Let’s not forget that there is a flat income tax in Belarus, and the tax amounts to the lowest in the world. Besides, unlike our neighbors, we do not make social security payments. The employer does that for us. Considering that, it has probably come to the necessity of discussing the introduction of a tax on wealth. It should be tolled not when a person receives money, but when they spend it. Let’s assume, someone is building a palace outside the city on the total area of 400 square meters and in addition to that has an apartment of 200 square meters, so such a real estate should probably be tolled with a quite a high tax. This money could be used to support unprotected groups of people, in order not to let the inequality coefficient grow”.

We would remind that for the first time in Belarus they thought of introducing a “tax on wealth” two years ago. However, the deputy minister for taxes and taxation Aliaksandr Darashenka then stated that they were not going to introduce it.