Nature's treasures belong to us all
MK Yacimovich continued to attack the gas tycoons, and called for fair distribution of the gas and oil profits: "It is inconceivable that all this wealth will belong to one person or to a handful of people. The question is, to whom do the sea and natural resources belong? The answer is: to all of us. I want the gas companies and their investors to get rich; the question is the proportion, the way the wealth is
however distributed, and everyone knows that the way wealth is distributed in Israel is outrageous. It is not economic, and not moral, and not reasonable. In our bill, we are talking about raising royalties to 20% and raising corporate taxation to 60%."
Yacimovich attacked the claim of retroactivity made by the gas partnerships. "The state can change old-age pensions retroactively," she said, "It can change the terms of retirement savings, reduce company taxes, and so on. The state can also change royalties policy.
"I want to quote something that Tshuva's highly paid CEO Gideon Tadmor said: 'Why impose taxes? Because a golden egg has been laid here and they want to kill it even before it hatches.' When did he say that? In 2001! It's ridiculous. He said then that it would be a disaster to apply taxes retroactively; those remarks were made nine years ago. Tshuva, his partners, and his employees, have for a long time been trying to thwart an archaic law; so let hem not bamboozle us with retroaction. They are simply lying, it's all sleight of hand. No-one landed on them now by surprise."
On the arguments of private property and discrimination, Yacimovich said: "The state has no right to determine different tax rates on different industries? What is this denial of the state's right to set tax rates? I suggest you read the interview with Tshuva in Globes last week. It's bizarre. He will help veterans, the underprivileged - he, and not the state. This is a distorted notion of
however democracy. Once every few years, a central government is elected, and it will decide where the money goes, not Mr. Tshuva.
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