MPs on Thursday debated a package of tax bills which the ruling majority said would make it easier for citizens to deal with the effects of the pandemic, while the opposition said the changes would benefit those with the highest incomes and leave the rest with "crumbs".

Ivana Posavec Krives of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) said the bills would deepen inequalities and the gap between the small number of people earning a lot and the large number of people who earned little and would now have HRK 15-100 higher monthly salaries.

“The richer can put the surplus money away or spend it on luxury goods, while those with the lowest incomes will try to reduce their debts given the end of the stay on loan repayments and debt collection. This heartless government doesn’t want to see that,” she said.

Vesna Nadj (SDP) said the changed tax rates which would significantly raise the highest salaries, including those of cabinet ministers and MPs, could not be called a reform.

She said it would be much more just to increase the non-taxable income and that a welfare state should provide social security to all citizens, correcting the imperfections of the market.

Katarina Peovic (Workers’ Front) noted that Croatia was lowering profit tax, which she said was among the lowest in the EU anyway, and income tax for those with the highest incomes. She said that this would only further disenfranchise the poor, stressing that the minimum wage did not meet people’s basic needs.

Stephen Bartulica (Homeland Movement) warned that “the huge state apparatus is like an insatiable octopus because expenditures are growing even though the number of inhabitants is on the decline.”

“In principle, we support tax cuts, but what is being done is too little and too late,” Bartulica said, warning that only Greece allocated more for public spending than Croatia. “The government is taking people’s money and reallocating it according to its own priorities,” he added.

Grozdana Peric of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that by cutting taxes since 2017 the government had ensured wage increases and the payment of Christmas bonuses and holiday grants as well as lower taxes for businesses. She said that taxes had been reduced by more than HRK 10 billion.