During the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, 2 Adar I 5774 a motion from Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Minister Silvan Shalom to determine which municipalities will be designated as eligible to receive tax incentives was placed on hold. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asked to postpone the vote, requesting that Lapid and Shalom work with his aides and not set new standardized criteria for all municipalities granted this status as planned.

Some cabinet ministers opposed standardizing the criteria for doing so would add 200 municipalities to the entitled communities list and this reality would compel curtailing the incentives enjoyed by eligible communities today. Hence the communities such as Sderot and Kiryat Shmona, which receive benefits today, would lose a portion of the tax incentives enjoyed by communities situated along a hostile border.

If the planned move would have passed, many southern and northern border communities would have lost significant benefits as a result. Mayors and municipality heads last week began lobbying cabinet ministers not to support the initiative.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)