Changes in the Czech Family Policy in the Context of Reducing Public Expenditures
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Spreading Standards, Building Capacities: European Administrative Space in Progress. Presented Papers from the 24th NISPAcee Annual Conference (from working groups and working sessions). |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | Benefits for Families with Children, Family Policy, Refundable Child Tax Credit, Child Tax Bonus, Public Expenditures. |
| Description | The concept of a social state and its size differs from state to state, and it is influenced by characteristics such as its history, measure of solidarity, citizen's mentality which is expressed in their wishes, etc. Welfare state social systems have gone through large changes. Nowadays we can see that social system is becoming more and more expensive. Provided that the state budget should be balanced, it has to follow cuts on the expenditure side as well. On the other hand, the state wants to help the risk group of people including families with children. The question remains how much the Czech Republic may decrease public expenditures in the field of social and family policy while keeping set goals of its policy. Have we already reached the potential bottom or crossed the line? This paper concentrates on the part of the social system, more precisely the family policy and its changes over ten years in the Czech Republic. Generally, we can say that the Czech Republic shifted attention from the direct benefits of the tax instrument and developing services for families. The paper especially focuses on two selected state subventions for families with children: Child allowance (direct money transfer) and refundable Child tax credits (an indirect tool, but it can also be a child tax bonus – negative income tax). These two forms seem to be entirely different at the first glance. But is it really so? The key questions are: How these tools are different and how different are their beneficiaries? Do we need both of these tools? |
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