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ECONOMY
| Important BA-CA indices |
February 2005 |
| Industrial action in this banking institute has frequently been the reason for headlines produced in the media. A few of the most important BA-CA indices shall sufficiently outline the bank’s development since the Bank Austria came into existence (in 1991). These indices present in a condensed form the history of a successful business management of the company: a balance sum that has multiplied four times since the BA foundation in 1991, an annual net operating profit after taxes that has multiplied many times to reach an amount of above 600 Mio euro, a remarkable increase of the dividends paid compared to the company’s first years, but - in spite of a merger having taken place with the CA - an unchanged number of staff now as in 1991. |
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| Important indices of companies and banks quoted on the Vienna stock-exchange 2001- 2003 |
December
2004 |
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Company profits and dividends have been on an upwardly going course in Austria, and this in spite of a slack economy as characteristic for the last years, while investment and employment figures were at the same time either stagnating or decreasing. An analysis of the company reports of the 34 largest companies quoted on the Prime Market of the Vienna stock-exchange yielded the following result: the companies’ after-tax profits that had amounted to a total of 1.51 billion euro in 2001, surged up to a new total of 1.98 billion euro in 2002 and amounted finally to a high of 2.83 billion euro in 2004, marking by this a rise of 88 % in total. The dividends paid by the companies during the same period increased by 47 % and reached a total amount of 726 million euro. The number of jobs within these companies increased, however, by 11 % only, 25 % of the respective companies having even less employers on the pay-roll in 2003 than in 2001. |
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Gerhard Senft, university professor at the Vienna university of economics, wrote a book under the German title “Im Vorfeld der Katastrophe - die Wirtschaftspolitik der 30-er Jahre in Österreich 1934-1938” (the book was issued by Anton Pelinka and Helmut Reinalter and appeared in the Braumüller publishing house in Vienna 2002). In his book the author describes in detail the budgetary and economic policies of the 30-ies in Austria, focusing mainly on the Austrian corporative state (Ständestaat) during the years 1934-1938. The book reveals the parallels existing between the budgetary and economical policies of the 1st Republic of Austria, characterized by a neo-classic theory on economics, and that of the Austrian Federal Government since 2000, pursuing a neo-liberal economy line. The parallels are quite enormous as to measures taken and consequences felt, but there are, of course, differences as to the dimensions involved and, undoubtedly as to the resistance of democracy in Austrian today.
See also www.austrofaschismus.at |
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In the current discussion on tax reform in Austria, tax rates are brought forward from different sources in order to substantiate certain demands. As the comparisons are contradictory sometimes, we present our own comparison of tax rates and hope to help shift discussion on a more objective basis. All comparisons of the more important tax rates in the EU-member states are based on data material published by either, the EU Commission, the OECD or the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (wifo). The comparisons clearly demonstrate that Austria is not the ‘country of high-level tax’ as it was frequently called. Austria turns out to be the EU-country with the lowest effective corporate tax rate and the most favourable wealth taxation installed. Also is environment taxation nowhere else as modest as in Austria. |
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