Israel’s caretaker Cabinet today voted the imposition of a compulsory, 25,000,000-pound ($14,000,000) loan on all Israeli wage and salary earners, to help finance housing for immigrants. The loan will amount to an additional 12 percent of an Israeli’s income tax, to be deducted from October of this year to next April, from all earnings of not less than $179 a month.
Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, presiding at the Cabinet meeting in the absence of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, told the Ministers the compulsory loan was needed because the 1961-1962 allocation of 60,000,000 Israeli pounds ($33,600,000) for immigrant housing was exhausted between April and September of this year, in view of the increased immigration.
The Government had originally asked the Cabinet to impose a compulsory loan totaling 85,000,000 pounds ($47,600,000), to be collected through deductions over an 18-month period. However, the caretaker Cabinet demurred, insisting that the long-term taxation be made the responsibility of the next Government, which is still in process of formation. In view of the urgency of the housing needs, Mr. Eshkol amended his own proposal.
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