Referendum, taxes and so on

Both the Parliamentary and non-Parliamentary opposition consider that the draft constitutional amendment which states that taxes should only be raised if the people agree to this in a referendum is populist. This draft was discussed in Parliament on December 25. Following the same logic the Parliamentary opposition demanded that the Government also hold a referendum every time it wanted to increase indirect taxes. Both sides then accused each other of taking populist steps.

Vakhtang Lezhava, an adviser of the PM, thinks that increasing taxes via a referendum is not unrealistic and says that some time ago the Swiss Government managed to convince the Swiss population of the necessity of increasing taxes. The role of government should be to persuade the population of the necessity of a proposed increase in taxes.

The draft constitutional amendments state that all tax increases will be subject to a referendum except excise taxes.