In the no-holds-barred battle taking place in Iceland as the government’s plans to increase the reource levy paid by fishing operators, serious accusations have been made by the country’s fishing vessel operators’ federation SFS that the information has been withheld from Parliament – which the Ministry of Industries has rejected.
SFS has claimed that the resource levy is set to double, based on the current year’s fishing opportunities, and has accused the ministry of duplicity in the way it has calculated the resource levy.
The ministry has responded by stating that work was carried out between the Ministry of Industries – responsible for fisheries – the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, the Directorate of Fisheries and the tax authority in calculating the projected levy as part of the proposed fisheries bill. As there were differences in the basis for calculation between some institutions, a discrepancy occurred and that this has been addressed.
The ministry states that the tax authority’s analysis subsequently sent to the ministry is based on a common basis, and these institutions are no wall in agreement on the outcome.
‘The Ministry of Industries and its staff have recently been the target of serious allegations in connection with this matter, including for having attempted deception and for having inappropriately interfered in the activities of state institutions. Such accusations are treated with the utmost seriousness and the Ministry enturely rejects these,’ the Ministry of Industries stated.
Polling company Maskína reported that the controversial advertising campaign run by SFS appears to have been largely counter-productive. Polling among the general public showed that two out of three of those polled felt that the advertisements were negative for the SFS standpoint, and the same proportion had a negative reaction to these adverts.
According to Maskína’s polling in May 69% of those polled approved of the Ministry’s proposed bill on the resource levy, up 6% from the previous poll.
A more recent poll indicates that those in favour of change and the recource levy bill now stand at 62%, while 24% polled as opposed to any change.
