The F. A. Hayek Foundation and the Association of Taxpayers have calculated the number of days during which citizens "work for the state" to cover the state's expenses. This year, it marked June 4 as Tax Freedom Day; representing the day in which a citizen earned enough income to pay his or her annual tax burden.
It came two days later than last year. According to the Foundation and the Association, this reflects mainly two aspects - the change in methodology of calculating GDP as well as government not stopping increasing expenses. The total redistribution rate in Slovakia in this year is 41.8 % of gross domestic product. In comparison, last year the redistribution rate was 41.38 %. "Out of every Euro that Slovaks produce, almost 42 cents go to services and products provided by the state", said Martin Reguli, an analyst for the Foundation. And so, converted into working days, Slovak citizens had been handing over their whole incomes to the state up to June 4. From noon that day, they started to work for themselves.
Tax Freedom Day 2015 was influenced by the change in national and regional accounts methodology used by the members of the European Union. Martin Reguli explained that there were also other factors entering the GDP calculation and the consolidated expenses of public administration. He also pointed out the fact that the government consolidated only the part of the income.
The Finance Ministry disagrees with the results of the analysis. According to its spokesperson Alexandra Gogova, it does not reflect correctly the tax payment burden in Slovakia. Following the ministry's own methodology, the Tax Freedom Day would come approximately month sooner.
