{"id":9955,"date":"2017-03-09T15:09:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T15:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/belarus-suspends-social-parasite-tax\/"},"modified":"2017-03-09T15:09:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T15:09:12","slug":"belarus-suspends-social-parasite-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/belarus-suspends-social-parasite-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Belarus suspends &#8216;social parasite&#8217; tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"People protest against the &quot;social parasites&quot; tax in Minsk, Belarus. Photo: 17 February 2017\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/12D6D\/production\/_95056177_825c96fb-0965-4125-ab88-92911c7cf5ae.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  AP<figcaption>Image caption                                      Mass protests were held across Belarus last month against the unpopular tax decree                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Belarus&#039;s president has suspended the collection of a tax on people not in full-time employment - the so-called decree &quot;against social parasites&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander Lukashenko said those who worked fewer than 183 days per year would not be liable in 2017 - but stressed the tax would not be scrapped. <\/p>\n<p>The decree - adopted in 2015 - requires those people to pay about $250 (\u00a3205) as compensation for lost tax revenues.<\/p>\n<p>It triggered mass protests last month, and more rallies are planned for March.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lukashenko announced the decision to freeze the tax collection at a government meeting in the capital Minsk on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The decree must be adjusted during March. The decree will not be abolished,&quot; he was quoted as saying by Belarus&#039;s Belta news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The president also said that those who had already paid the tax in 2016 would be fully compensated if they found a job next year.<\/p>\n<p>According to the last tax inspection, 470,000 people should have paid the tax but only 50,000 had done so, Reuters news agency reports.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AP<figcaption>Image caption                                      Alexander Lukashenko has been described by some Western officials as &quot;Europe&#039;s last dictator&quot;                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At the same time, the president warned that the authorities must show &quot;tough reaction&quot; to organisers of any future street protests against the decree.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lukashenko has run Belarus - a country where little dissent is tolerated - since 1994.<\/p>\n<p>He has been described by some Western officials as &quot;Europe&#039;s last dictator&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mr Lukashenko has recently been seeking to improve ties with the West and lessen the country&#039;s dependence on Russia.<\/p>\n<p><a rel='nofollow' href=http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-39221147 target=\"_blank\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright APImage caption Mass protests were held across Belarus last month against the unpopular tax decree Belarus&#039;s president has suspended the collection of a tax on people not in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}