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The Slovak government plans to meet the Maastricht fiscal deficit criterion- the ceiling of 3 percent of GDP-by 2007. The reforms have been undertaken in a context of a need for medium-term fiscal consolidation. More recently, Poland has been considering introducing a flat-rate income tax, and the Romanian government elected in late 2004 moved swiftly to introduce a 16 percent flat tax effective from January 2005. 3 Estonia introduced a flat-rate income tax in 1995, and was followed by several other countries from the former Soviet Union-notably including Russia, which introduced a 13 percent tax in 2001. The flat-rate income tax, which featured prominently in the reforms, has become a particular topic of interest for policymakers in the region.
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Second, the potential for interaction between tax and welfare systems can have strong implications for incentives to work-especially important in a context of high unemployment, which remains one of Slovakia’s most pressing economic and social problems. First, these reforms are important in their own right. 2 The focus on the tax and welfare reforms has two motivations. These reforms are part of a wide-ranging agenda that also includes reforms to pensions, healthcare, the labor market, and the legal system, with further reforms planned in the education system. This paper reviews Slovakia’s recent reforms to its tax and welfare systems.