Austria’s austerity plan is to raise €1.17bn from tax increases and €1.6bn in public spending cuts. The objective is to return the public deficit below 3% of GDP by 2011.
General information and figures
Austria’s austerity plan is to raise €1.17bn from tax increases and €1.6bn in public spending cuts. The objective is to return the public deficit below 3% of GDP by 2011.
Unemployment rate (June 2010): 4.5%
GDP (bn euro – 2010): 279.61
General Government Debt (2009 - % GDP): 67.5
Public deficit (2009 - % GDP): 3.5
Source: Eurostat
Public Employees
3000 jobs in the postal sector will be cut by 2014.
Cuts in social benefits
Reduction in the 13th month family benefit to a fixed amount of 100€ for children between 6 and 15 years old. For children between 18 and 21 who are seeking employment and for children over 24 the family benefit is abolished.
Cuts in allowances for nursing care, which will save €142m by 2014.
Cuts are foreseen in the budget for training programmes for secondary school diplomas for low-qualified people.
Training measures for unemployed people are reduced.
Pension reforms
Pension contributions are raised for agricultural and self-employed workers.
After 2014, the pension age for women will gradually increase from 57 to 60.
Starting from 2014, the time spent in university, secondary school and long-term illness will not be counted in the pension contribution period.
Cuts in public services, transfers and public investments
Reduction of investments in infrastructure (railway network, schools and university facilities).
{{
Tax changes}}
Price of fuel is increased by 0.048€ per liter, price of diesel is increased by 0.06€ per liter.
Tax for cars with CO2 emissions above 180g/km is increased.
A flight ticket levy is introduced with the objective of raising €90m: 8€ for EU fights, 20€ for medium-range flights and 35€ for long-haul flights.
Tobacco tax is increased and it is expected to raise €150m.
€100m is expected from cancelling refunds of the energy tax for services companies.
Regulations on corporate group tax have been tightened to raise €200m.
A bank levy has been imposed to raise €500m, €360m of which will come from increases from 0.04 to 0.08 per cent (according to the size of the bank) for domestic total assets and €140m will be from charges to speculative derivative transactions.
An increase from 12.5% to 25% of the interim tax on foundations has been decided in order to raise €100m.
Starting from the 1st of January 2011, equity purchases will be subject to a general tax obligation (25%) on share price gains.