European countries proposes a "social parasite" tax

Posted: Mar 29, 2017

has hit upon a novel idea to reduce poverty: Fine people for being poor. Belarus, which lies between Russia and Poland and was formerly part of the Soviet Union, plans to introduce a “social parasites” tax on the unemployed. Unlike in many Western nations, where the government helps the unemployed, in Belarus, the long-term unemployed will have to pay the government. The country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has said the $233 levy — around a month’s wages in Belarus — will “instill discipline in the work-shy,” according to the BBC. Some Belarussians have taken to the streets, saying it’s a step too far by Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994. This weekend, around 400 people were arrested in the capital city of Minsk as protesters tried to hold a forbidden demonstration against the new law. The government says the protesters were not peaceful and “petrol bombs and arms-laden cars” were found nearby. First signed into law in 2015, Presidential Decree number 3, more widely known as the “spongers” or “freeloaders” tax, proposed fining people if they had not worked for six months. At the time, Lukashenko said the tax would “stimulate able-bodied citizens to engage in labor activity and fulfill their constitutional obligation to participate in financing state expenditures.” Failure to pay the levy, or take on menial work that pays a pittance, could ultimately send Belarussians to jail. Modal TriggerPolice officers detain a protester in Minsk.Getty Images The law harks back to the criminal offense of “social parasitism” that was on the statute books during the Soviet era to punish people who “intentionally don’t work.” Around half a million people in the country of 9.5 million are thought to be out of work in an economy that is still largely centrally planned and dependent on government intervention. Yevgeny Radkevich, a 19-year-old unemployed repairman, was one of those who chose to protest. Recently freed from a seven-day jail stay after being arrested, he thinks he did the right thing. “We have to go out and speak of our dissatisfaction so that the government doesn’t consider us to be slaves,” Radkevich told AP from Minsk. The protests are not just about the tax. Many in the landlocked country are fed up with the 23-year-old rule of Lukashenko, who has been called Europe’s “last dictator.” In an effort to quell the protests, the president agreed to delay the introduction of the “spongers tax” but refused to ax the measure completely. This did little to calm demonstrators. Dissent is usually quickly quashed in Belarus. However, in an apparent effort to curry favor with the West and reduce Minsk’s reliance on Moscow, the government had allowed earlier protests to take place without arrests. That tolerance now seems to be over. ;