Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday offered landlords an incentive to put more housing on the market, in a move intended to provide relief to young couples and immigrants searching for affordable places to live.
But Knesset critics said the decision, made during a Cabinet session devoted largely to economic measures, would do nothing to solve the burning economic issue of the day, which is creation of more jobs for immigrants.
Under the plan adopted Sunday, which was proposed by Finance Minister Yitzhak Moda’i and must now be approved by the Knesset Finance Committee, the capital gains tax on apartment sales would be eliminated for three years.
The Treasury hopes that by removing the tax, which inhibited sales, hundreds of units will hit the market and prices will drop.
Moda’i said his ministry is preparing several “interim plans” for the economy, which will be presented to labor and management this week to enlist their cooperation.
But the head of the Labor Party’s Knesset faction, Haim Ramon, criticized Moda’i’s priorities.
The urgent need is jobs for thousands of unemployed Israelis, many of them recent immigrants from the Soviet Union, Ramon said. He cited predictions that another 10,000 people would join the ranks of the unemployed this month.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
