Purchased through the new application presented today or on kisok – ticket prices in Zagreb remain the same for now. Will it be like that in the future?
“I cannot guarantee because we will have to somehow compensate for 40 million euros,” said Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomašević.
And that is the deficit that the city treasury will have when the surtax is abolished and after the income tax rate is raised to the maximum. The difference could also be paid by the citizens of Zagreb’s neighboring towns.
“Every day, a lot of them work in Zagreb, use public transport and use the same ticket price as the citizens of Zagreb. And the citizens of Zagreb are the ones who pay their taxes into the city budget. Not the citizens of the surrounding settlements. So from that perspective, if there really was a race between cities with tax reductions, then we would be forced to have different prices,” Tomašević added, writes N1.
What do the citizens say?
In that case, for example, citizens of Samobor and Sveta Nedjelja would pay more for tram and bus tickets. Announcements about higher costs never make citizens happy, but some are understanding.
“It’s not right, it’s definitely not right. If everything is for the same, then everything is for the same. It’s like if he comes to Samobor and I charge him 10 euros for a cream pie because he’s not from Samobor, and otherwise it costs 5.”
“Everything breaks on us, yes, and the weakest always suffer.”
“Look, on the one hand it’s justified, I agree, because for example, you go to Dalmatia, you pay normally there, you don’t have benefits. But well, we from Zagreb County, who normally lean towards Zagreb and have to do some things, that would not be good for us, no.”
What do other mayors say?
Dario Zurovec, mayor of Sveta Nedelja, which abolished the surtax four years ago, does not see any justification in Tomašević’s statement. The calculations are underway, he hopes to be able to reduce the income tax, which would mean more euros in citizens’ pockets. He calls the idea that Zagreb charges its citizens more for the same service a failed thesis.
“My thesis is that we have free city transport here, which is financed from the city budget of Sveta Nedelja. So what if we charge a ticket to people from Zagreb? This is stupidity”, said Zurovec and added:
“It’s another matter that they have insolvent companies or that they don’t know how to manage certain companies and bring order.”
His colleague from Samobor also agrees that it is not fair that their citizens suffer because of the problems that Tomašević and the City of Zagreb have.
“It is not right that the citizens bear the consequences of bad previous policies and bad management and that everything falls on them,” said Petra Škrobot, mayor of Samobor.
He is in favor of building a railway to Zagreb, they want cooperation, but he does not support such measures. That’s why the HDZ mayor of another neighboring town, Velika Gorica, supports them. 12 percent surtax, which is abolished from 1.1. they will have to compensate, but not through an increase in income tax. Quite the opposite, it announces a reduction.
“We are renouncing the surcharge that was 12 percent in Velika Gorica, which we did not mention, we will go for maximum relief for our citizens,” said Krešimir Ačkar, mayor of Velika Gorica.
They will find out whether other citizens can count on a salary increase and how much, when their mayors and chiefs decide how they will replace the money they will lose due to the abolition of the surcharge and whether they will. They still have half a year for that, writes N1.
