The Ministry of Justice will not allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other MKs to refrain from voting on Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon's bill on taxation of a third housing unit merely because they own three or more housing units.
An opinion slated for imminent publication by the Ministry of Justice accords with a Twitter posting today by Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked, in which she wrote, "In such a broad and general matter as taxation, ministers and MKs are not in a conflict of interest. I will ask the Attorney General to make this clear. Elected public representatives must not be excluded."
Shaked's post and the Ministry of Justice's opinion follow a comment by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday on Channel 2 about Kahlon's proposal, in which he said, "I have a conflict of interest, because I own a third housing unit." Netanyahu's statement was interpreted as being aimed against Kahlon, who refrained from taking sides on the natural gas plan promoted by Netanyahu a year ago. Netanyahu also said that he did not know how many MKs owned three or more housing units.
According to figures published today by the Ministry of Finance, 54,000 families in Israel own three or more housing units: 38, 232 families own three housing units, and 9,863 own four housing units. The average age of an individual owning three or more housing units is 56, and the average monthly income of a household with three or more housing units is NIS 46,000, triple the average household income in Israel.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 25, 2016
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