Macedonia Contract Workers Challenge Tax Hike

Opponents of the tax rise from 10 to 35 per cent for contract workers said they would take an appeal to the constitutional court in a bid to have the increase revoked.

"Now that the laws have come into force, the revolt will rise even more. We will not sit idle. We have already prepared the appeal to the constitutional court," said Zdravko Saveski, the head of the left-wing movement Lenka.

"Despite the government's propaganda efforts to portray the reform as bring for the benefit of the people, the people themselves can see that [the authorities] are only interested in the money," Saveski told Faktor.

The change means that workers on fixed-term contracts and casual workers will have to pay 35 per cent of their earnings for health and social welfare, just as if they were fully employed. Previously they were taxed at a rate of 10 per cent.

The government insists the reform will boost workers' social security. But contract workers and casual employees see it as an attempt to take money from people who already earn little, often a modest 200 to 400 euro a month.

One of the main points of the legal complaint is expected to be that the new taxes will put workers in an unequal position. Although they will pay full taxes, contract workers will still lack the benefits of the fully employed such as that right to annual paid vacation, annual bonuses and sick leave.

In December thousands of workers protested against the reform which according to estimates may directly hit some 150,000 people in the country of 2.1 million and pump an additional 70 million euro into the national budget each year.

Before the new year, several professional associations demanded the scrapping of the reform, arguing that it would...