Advertisement

July 1st brings in financial changes

The Local Austria
The Local Austria - [email protected]
July 1st brings in financial changes
Will families be better off? File photo: APA

Four changes that might affect life for people resident in Austria from July 1st - from a cap on roaming charges, to child support, and public transport fare increases.

Advertisement

Roaming charges

A new EU roaming charge cap takes effect from midnight, July 1st, and will lower costs for people travelling across the EU. Under the new rules the maximum charge for outgoing calls, excluding VAT, will be 19 cents per minute, six cents for outgoing text messages and 20 cents for a MB download of data.

However, the new caps only apply when you use a mobile within the EU - and not for the whole of Europe. If you’re travelling further afield the most crucial thing is to turn off data roaming on your phone or tablet. Look up your model on the internet before you travel to find out how to do this. It will stop the automatic downloads of updates, which can cause a huge bill.

Child support

If you are a parent of one or more of Austria’s 1.8 million children, you can expect between four and six euros to be added to your monthly child support money.

That might sound like a good thing but Alfred Trendl, president of the Catholic Family Association, sees no reason to rejoice. “Again, Austria will say it gives families great support but it is a myth that Austria champions families,” Trendl told Der Standard newspaper.

He said that Austria does significantly less for families than other OECD countries and that tax benefits do not necessarily result in tangible benefits for children. He added that the amount of child support has not increased in line with inflation, as the consumer price index has risen by 1.7 percent in the last 12 months - so that in reality families are now worse off. Currently parents get a tax free allowance of €132 euros, per child, each year. Trendl is calling for childcare costs to be made automatically tax deductible.

Public transport fares in Vienna and Salzburg

Vienna’s public transport (Wiener Linien) is putting up some of its prices - although the price of an annual ticket, as well as annual travel cards for pensioners and young people will stay the same.

A ticket for a single journey will now cost €2.20, rather than €2.10, a weekly travel card will cost €16.50, up from €15.80, and a monthly travel card will cost €48.20, up from €47.00. A full list of changes can be found on the Wiener Linien website. Tickets that were purchased before 1st July 2014 will remain valid until the end of the year.

An annual travel card is the cheapest way to travel around Vienna for residents - at €365, it costs just one euro per day.

Salzburg is also facing increases, with single journey tickets purchased on the trolley bus going up from €2.40 to €2.50, and reduced fare tickets increasing from €1.60 to €1.70.  A 24-hour ticket also increases from €5.30 to €5.50, while monthly passes increase from €49.40 to €51.40.

On the positive side, the cost of a year's card in Salzburg is being reduced from €494 to only €366, bringing it in line with Vienna.

Tax on prostitution

This is unlikely to apply to many of our readers - but those working for “the oldest profession in the world” may now have to pay more tax.

Prostitution is legal and regulated in Austria and prostitutes are considered to be self-employed, and since 1986 they have been required to pay taxes.

But from July 1st they have been told they will all need to do “individual tax assessments” - rather than the brothel they work for paying tax on their behalf. Christian Knapp, who works for the non profit organization Sexworker.at, is worried that women will now be forced into “illegality” - working in unregulated brothels, or on the street, to avoid having to pay tax.

“Political leaders are not concerned with improving sex workers' lives, but only on taxing their earnings,” he added.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also