Bank of Israel Governor Dr. Karnit Flug is now under fire from chareidim following her remarks to a kenos earlier this week. The senior official expressed concerns pertaining to the nation’s economic future, citing chareidi and Arab communities are a component of the concerns surrounding staggered economic growth.
Among the chareidi lawmakers who spoke out against Flug was MK Menachem Eliezer Moses, who decried the statements made by the governor, rejecting accusation that chareidim are to blame for the nation’s economic woes. He explained the chareidi tzibur is tired of being the national punching bag, adding in actuality; most tax revenue income is generated by the large families. He expressed criticism of the government’s confused economic policy that includes giving tax incentives to Teva while blaming chareidim who pay tax for the national recession. “The contribution of Teva to Israel’s economy is the subject of major debate and there are economists who feel that the company’s benefit is outweighed by the benefits it receives from the government. The state agreed to wave billions in income from Teva in the form of taxes while almost no one will argue regarding the contribution made to the economy by families with many children, with the latter’s contribution to the economy being higher than average. These facts appear in a study from the Central Bureau of Statistics.”
Moses explained he fears there will be no alternative but to declare a tax revolt, citing Teva threatened to move to Switzerland if incentives were lost and the government backed down. He added that if threats to move patents to Switzerland result in receiving additional tax incentives, it may be worthwhile for the chareidim to do the same, to declare a tax revolt – to stop paying value added tax, purchase tax; basically no tax directly or indirectly until such time the government understand that chareidim are citizens that have the same rights in the state and for the tax they pay in accordance to the law, they are entitled to be rewarded like all other citizens.”
Moses explains that large families are paying 18% VAT on items as they buy supplies to keep their families running, which amounts to enormous income for the government while small families cannot say the same. “Enough with your lexicon ‘we pay your way’ for you do not pay for us, but we pay for you!”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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10 Responses
Stop whining. At least she did say the hareidim kidnap zionist babies and use their blood to bake shmurah matza.
Any fool can tell that Arabs and Hareidim are totally marginalized in Israel, and have minimal impact on the economy, and that the decision to exclude is made by the ruling elite, not by the minority. She’s a bigot. Take her as seriously as you take other bigots.
I wonder if MK Moses has any statistics on the amount the Chareidi community pays in taxes vs. what it receives in subsidies. One would think a tax revolt would work both ways. Irregardless of is logic, the basic economic principles Dr. Flug is pointing out are well established. When more economic activity takes place, the standard of living rises across the economic sectors. Perhaps MK Moses should get a lesson in basic economics. He makes us sound rather stupid.
If you bother to read her presentation and the supporting empirical analysis published by the BoI economists, her position is correct. On a net basis, the Chareidi tzibur contributes less to the GDP of EY than they “take” in terms of aggregate public transfer payments from all levels of government. You might argue that they pay a higher effective tax rate and the tax burdens on large families are regressive and disproportionate but those are subjective determinations subject to debate.
Akpurma
U should be commenting on other websites not here with ur anti Frum attitude.
What exactly does he intend by a tax revolt? Avreichim already receive a discount on their arnona (in Jerusalem at least, I’d assume other places as well) and I highly doubt the average kollel stipend is enough to even qualify for taxes. As far as VAT goes – you don’t really have a choice in that… the stores you buy at include it in the price. The only way you can get out of that is if you just completely stop buy products altogether, grow your own food and live off your own arts and crafts.
Perhaps he is threatening that a large amount of bnei kollel are going to leave the beit midrash to start working and then withhold the taxes on their new salaries?
#2 #3
Mk Moses is totally correct. You clearly have an anti chareidi viewpoint. I’ve been saying this from the begining: I have no idea why the chareidi MK’s become so sympathetic to the zionist/right agenda when they suffer from the govt. Because the zionist agenda against the chareidi needs are so staggering that it’s unbelievable. You clearly are only commenting on YWN to bring a message to chareidim and not because you wanna see or hear the truth.
#4 Getzel – Just an FYI, Akpurma is actually a Frum anti-Zionist. His comment was tongue and cheek. Although, I must admit that this comment he made is a little out of his normal character.
To the Anti-Chareidi commentators here – Unfortunately, it is narrow minded people like yourselves that the Jew hating politicians thrive on! Did you ever think to use your own thinking capacity and investigate for yourselves the legitimacy of the claims made?
I have a website for you to start exploring. It’s called Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel) http://www.cbs.gov.il
Here is some statistics that the Jew Hating Politicians don’t want you to know.
According to the CBS:
Chareidim make 8.8% of the Total Population.
Welfare recipients make 5.8% of the Total Population. This, of course, including Secular Jews, Arabs and other minorities (such as 56,000 Sudanese and Eritreans).
However, let’s close our mind’s eye a second and erroneously assume that Chereidim made up 100% of that 5.8% on welfare. That would mean that only 5.8% of the Israels Total Population 8.134 million (roughly 472,000 people)are to blame for the “terrible” economy that we face here in Israel.
Let’s put this in perspective. A mere 472,000 supposed Chareidim are to blame for the sever economy struggles that the other 7,662,000 million people face. Does that make sense to you?
A 2 bedroom apartment in “Secular” Tel Aviv costs an outstanding 2.5 million shekels! Who’s to blame? A mere 472,000 Chareidim!
Food prices on all domestic items have gone up drastically in the last couple of years. Who’s to blame? A mere 472,000 Chareidim!
Are you getting my drift?
OK. Back down to reality! First of all, the Chareidim DO NOT make 100% of the 5.8% on the welfare. Furthermore, according to the CBS the 44% of Male Chareidim and 56% of Female Chareidim work. If so, we can safely say that at best the Chareidim make up for about half the total recipients of welfare. Thus, we are now blaming a mere 236,000 Chereidim for the suffering of 7,662,000 million people.
Can I as you an honest question? HOW MUCH MONEY ARE THESE 236,000 MAKING FROM WELFARE THAT THEY ARE SO SEVERELY AFFECTING THE OTHER 7,662,000 MILLION ISRAELIS?
Let’s take a look.
Median salary in Israel:
Males: NIS 8,741
Females: NIS 6,600
Child Benefits (2 kids): NIS 280
Total Family Income: NIS 15,621
Chereidi Family:
Kollel stipend: NIS 1,750 (approx)
Wife’s median salary: NIS 6,600
Child Benifits (10 kids): NIS 1,400
Total Family Income: NIS 9,750
Now keep in mind that it is very customary here that either the Kallah’s side or both sides buy them an apartment; often in full. Thus, there is around NIS 4500 that they do not need to apply towards mortgage. After we tag that onto our figure we come out to NIS 14,250. They are now just NIS 1,371 short of their secular brothers.
However, let’s not forget that they have a much larger family, so one might think that they need a lot more than the NIS 15,621 that there 2 kids secular counterpart require. The secular Jew must understandable believe that they need at least NIS 25,000 to survive. That’s a difference of NIS 10,750!!! Where do they get that from if not from the government!!!
What they don’t realize is that religious Jews are comfortable living on a much lower materialistic standard than their secular counterpart. Most do not own the NIS 3,000/month car(s) that their secular counterpart demand. They often survive off of second hand clothing or from subsidized gemachim; not to mention that a pair of yeshivisha pants cost around NIS 100 while blue jeans cost NIS 450 and up!
Non-the-less, at times religious Jews need help, but most do not turn to the government for support. We have our own internal Tzedaka organizations that help out the needy. Our rich religious brothers help their peers, unlike the secular rich who rarely and barely help their secular brethren.
So how much help does the government give the Chareidi family beyond the Secular family. Let see:
Child Benefits: 1,400 – 280 = 1,120 monthly
Property tax: 5,000 – 90% = 375 monthly
Total: = 1,495 monthly
There are a lot of other factor that could be added here, such as reduction in Health tax, reduction in Utility bills (based on the size family, not income), etc., but when you counter weigh the higher medical costs, ability for the secular Jew to receive the swallowed Health tax in a tax return, etc., it becomes extremely difficult to calculate. So let’s for argument sake add another NIS 505 to make it an even NIS 2000/month government assistant to these 236,000 religious “parasites”. So how much money are we talking about?
236,000 ÷ 12 member family x NIS 2000 X 12 months = NIS 472,000,000 million Annually
A drop in the bucket when you consider that the annual Israeli Deficit is around NIS 28,600,000,000 billion!
So who’s creating the other NIS 28,128,000,000 billion deficit? It’s not the Chereidim!!!
(Of course, all this is simplified, but I’m sure everybody would agree that there just isn’t enough room here for a full comprehensive discussion on this topic. My intention is merely to wake people out of their slumber and get them to realize not to be zombies swallowing up everything that these self-interests politician try to brainwash you with.)
My apology is some people didn’t realism I was being sarcastic. I was try to say, Baruch ha-Shem she isn’t accusing us of eating babies — but the point is that her criticism and appeals to stereotypes are typical of what anti-semites have done throughout history, and are not to be taken seriously, e.g. they complain we are desperately poor, and then complain we have too much money which we “waste” on supporting people learning Torah.
my apologizes to akuperma
sorry I didn’t get it…
IF she was really concerned about Hareidi (and Arab) participation in the Israeli economy, she would advocate abolition of conscription and legislation requiring reasonable accomodation of the religious practices and lifestyles of peoples from traditional cultures (and bluntly, much of what passes as normal in Israel would be considered actionable discrimination and harassment in the USA).