Icelandic government efforts to reduce their debt continue, by both raising taxes and reducing spending.
Taxes on individuals and businesses, RÚV reports, will be raised by 10 billion ISK, with the largest tax increases going towards the highest earners in the country. At the same time, the government will be reducing expenditures by 30 billion ISK.
Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir told reporters that there is concordance in this measure, while Minister of Finance Steingrímur J. Sigfússon added that with this, the government can resume paying down its debt next year.
The budget bill will be submitted to parliament at the beginning of the fall parliamentary session, in October, as usual.
Raising taxes and cutting spending to the social welfare system has been decidedly unpopular with most Icelanders, but Steingrímur in particular has been eager to get the International Monetary Fund (IMF) out of the country and pay down the loans that were paid to the country following the fall 2008 economic collapse.