2023-09-09 16:10:37
The president of the PTB pleaded on Saturday for the establishment of 0% VAT on food. He criticized both the right and the left of the government for not having done anything over the last thirty years to put an end to the exemption from capital gains on shares.
“Nearly 15% increase in one year… It’s not possible to pay more and more for fruit, pasta, rice, or vegetables; as we have been doing in Belgium for several years,” explained Raoul Hedebouw, during the new edition of ManiFiesta. This political and festive gathering of the far-left party was organized on the site of the ‘Wellington’ racecourse in Ostend.
Among the speakers-witnesses were the president of the FGTB, Thierry Bodson, and the head of ACV-PULS, a section of the Flemish Christian union, Fatiha Dahmani.
In the eyes of the president of the PTB, the prices of all foods are soaring while “the profits of agribusiness multinationals are exploding”. Mr. Hedebouw criticized the government for not blocking prices in the face of this situation.
According to him, a reduction in VAT to 0% on all food products such as milk, meat, bread or pasta would allow us to save 5, 10, 15 euros each time we go shopping.
To finance such a measure, the president of the Belgian Labor Party recommends eliminating tax loopholes “which allow the super rich to fill their pockets without paying taxes”.
“Today, if companies owned by the super-rich sell shares and make a capital gain, they pay 0 euros in tax… Last year, several billionaires made capital gains of hundreds of millions euros without working and without paying anything.”, he added.
Still according to Raoul Hedebouw, this tax loophole costs the state coffers 4 billion euros. “And following that, we hear the right-wing parties say that there is no money for tax reform… The reality is that Belgium is a tax hell for workers, and a paradise tax for the super-rich”.
In passing, he criticized the parties “which call themselves left-wing in government for” forgetting to say that the exemption from capital gains on shares was decided in 1991 by a government with the socialist parties, PS and Vooruit, with the CD&V and the Engagés, and that they have been in government almost uninterrupted for 30 years… Where are their own red lines? How is it that a right-wing party seems to be able to block everything, but four so-called left-wing parties cannot impose anything serious,” he asked.
Pension supplements
He also attacked those who opposed the questioning of the pension supplements of parliamentarians such as Siegfried Bracke, the former N-VA president of the Chamber, out loud, but also at Vlaams Belang, which had approved the system and some members of which who earn 6,000 euros per month “pocket the money”, without flinching.
Furthermore, the president of the PTB announced the launch by his formation, with a view to the next electoral deadlines, of a survey of 100,000 people in neighborhoods and businesses throughout the country to address a series of aspects of change in society in terms of tax justice, purchasing power, the housing crisis or “privileges of politicians”.
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