Hairdressers are demanding a sales tax reduction – salzburg.ORF.at
business
The hairdressers’ guild is calling for sales tax to be halved from the current 20 to ten percent. Because the hairdressers would not only struggle with the shortage of skilled workers, but also with the migration to self-employment. According to the industry, reducing sales tax is the only way to avoid closures.
The challenge for hairdressers in the state is great, described hairdresser Elisabeth Bergmüller from Eben (Pongau). “On the one hand, there are the exploding costs and, on the other hand, wage increases, which of course are also a matter of course, because we also want to upgrade our profession and make it more attractive, so that the young people also have prospects. But of course we also feel the inflation, which has reached us too.”
Hairdressers demand sales tax reduction
Hairdressers demand sales tax reduction
“Unequal” competition with EPUs
In addition, the hairdressers are also struggling with emigration – namely into self-employment – because: Small companies are not subject to VAT up to an annual turnover of 35,000 euros, at the same time they are trained in companies, but do not train themselves and would also distort competition, according to Bergmüller . “Because the EPUs simply don’t pay any taxes and we pay 20 percent sales tax, or the customers pay that too – and of course it also seems more expensive for us – and that’s simply an unequal competitive advantage.”
Guild: Reduction could help pay higher wages
The Federal Guild of Hairdressers is calling for sales tax to be halved – as was the case in the catering industry during the corona pandemic. “The reduction in VAT would help us to pay higher wages – the state would be able to afford higher wages through social security contributions. We extrapolated it: A reduction in VAT will cost the state 25 million euros a year in the short term.”
In other countries – such as the Netherlands – such measures are supported for a limited period of five years. The hairdressers’ guild in Austria wants to make their demands heard in politics once again.