This week the Committee for Labor, Welfare and Health passed a new bill in the Knesset that is supposed to lessen the tax burden for single parents in Israel.
The ruling, which mainly effects single moms, is supposed to create further incentives for them to join the workforce and will run in a pilot test of two years. So far single parents who receive income support or child maintenance assistance from the National Insurance Institute of Israel were only allowed a certain amount of additional income. In fact anything above 3.200 NIS had to be taxed by a rate of 60 Percent – this rate was now reduced to 25 Percent. By this the net income increases and makes it worth a while for single moms to work despite the high costs for daycare in Israel (the state only offers subsidized daycare from age three).
For Ran Melamed, Deputy Director for Communication and Social Policy at the YEDID Association, who fights for the rights of single parents for years, this new ruling is a first success: “Single moms are motivated to work and will have more net income at the end of the month. There is still a long way to go though: The perfect solution would be to allow single moms to work, without that income affecting their income support and child maintenance assistance.”
