Several East European countries have been flirting with various forms of a “retailer tax”. A tax similar (but not equal) to VAT, or the sales tax. Its proclaimed aim is typically to “punish” international retail chains, which have been repeatedly blamed for problems of local farmers and local food and beverages industry.
The Slovak government’s intention is to lower the market power of large international retail chains. Unfortunately, the alleged problems are mostly made-up. Instead, the “retail chain tax” may end up raising the food prices and wrecking havoc in Slovak retail.
New populist extreme right which “assumed a political party form” is found also in other European countries and in the democracies of the third wave – post-communist countries.
