The need to support middle and low income groups through tax reform is pressing

 

25 August 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

Tax reform is a necessity, but what the government has presented so far suggests that we are not looking at any comprehensive reform.

The government’s proposals to date do not aim at ensuring a fairer distribution of the tax burden. Instead of effectively supporting the middle and lower income groups, the high income groups are favoured and low income groups and those below the tax-free income threshold are being burdened with even more taxes. Nor, of course, can the reform be turned into an attempt to grant even more tax breaks to powerful business interests and for tax evasion and corruption to increase even more.

AKEL considers that the reform should be an opportunity to create a fairer, simpler, and more effective system. With a change in the balance between indirect and direct taxes, with more progressive income tax rates to provide greater support for middle and low income groups, with the implementation of wealth tax measures so that revenues can be used to expand social policy, with a reduction in the tax burden on small family businesses in the country and with effective combating of tax evasion.