Windfall tax will bring in billions, Minister Stanjura confirmed

The six largest domestic banks that will pay tax on extraordinary profits this year earned a total of 57.1 billion crowns over the three quarters of this year. In the same period last year, it was 58.4 billion crowns. Analysts have previously pointed out that the windfall tax for the banking sector will not bring the promised revenue to the state budget. Deputy Minister of Finance Marek Mora also said this at the parliamentary committee meeting this week.

“I have no reason to contradict what the deputy was saying,” Stanjura told Czech Television. “So in the political dictionary it means until five,” he added.

Watch the interview with the Minister of Finance Zbyňek Stanjura:

The windfall tax was imposed by the state on energy, petrochemical and mining companies and on large banks. He justified this by their unexpected income as a result of a sharp increase in energy prices, and in the case of banks, a significant increase in interest rates. In addition, energy producers pay a revenue levy for more expensive electricity than the thresholds set by the government for each energy source. Windfall tax collection was 25.8 billion crowns at the end of October. So far, the state has collected 17.3 billion crowns from the levy from excessive income from electricity production.

When drawing up the state budget for this year, the Ministry of Finance stated that income from the windfall tax should reach 85 billion crowns and from the levy 15 billion crowns. In the August forecast of fiscal revenues, the Ministry of Finance stated that this year the state will collect 46 billion crowns from the windfall tax, the levy from excess revenues should bring 18.5 billion crowns to the state budget this year. Stanjura said this week that the revenue from both measures this year will not fully cover the compensation of high energy prices that the state provides to companies and households.

“Most likely, not only we, but also the other big banks will only pay an absolutely minimal windfall tax,” a source from another key Czech bank, who wished to remain anonymous, told e15 this September. According to him, it can be expected that the closest to reality will be an amount in the order of millions of crowns for one financial house. In the same spirit, the head of ČSOB Aleš Blažek expressed himself to the portal Seznam.cz in April this year, who also calculated the levies in the order of millions.

Banks have prepared their business models for the additional tax. “One cannot underestimate the ability of banks to optimize profit completely legally, either within their multinational structures or locally. If the banks know that the profit will be taxed by the windfall tax, nothing prevents them from increasing the costs of employee compensation, repairs or other purposes,” Petr Kymlička, an economist and partner of the consulting group Moore Czech Republic, told e15 earlier.