Meirav Arlosoroff

Nor can social gaps be narrowed just by taxing investments.

National Economic Council presents cabinet both internal and external threats that Israel's economy is expected to face until 2050.

If the state wants to slash child income stipends as a bid to get the ultra-Orthodox to work, it needs to have a mechanism in place to help those poor families who do work.

Treasury planning to savage tax break on long-term savings for high earners.

The budget draft calls for lowering the cap at which savers are eligible for tax benefits to NIS 15,000, down from the current NIS 35,000.

Israel's rich aren't getting as easy a ride as most people think. The main flaw with the impending budget cuts is that they spare powerful interests like the defense establishment and the labor unions, but these groups may yet be made to pay.

Widespread opposition to proposed austerity measures forces treasury to consider amendments that would soften the budget's effect on taxpayers.

Officials are also discussing imposing an estate tax, although not in current fiscal package.

The new 2013-2014 budget is harsh, but offers hope for the future, and may change Israel forever.

The Finance Minister may also tax advanced training funds and redraw the map of the periphery to apply a higher tax rate to more exporters.

The Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investment made it possible for the biggest companies to get more in benefits than they pay to the state.

Too many senior physicians at Israeli hospitals are on the job for life, crowding out younger colleagues and raking in public money.

To facilitate their participation in the workforce, Haredim need vocational training and help in completing education and finding jobs.

Pilots who direct ships into docks are paid handsomely to be on call at home - another sign that the ports urgently need reform.

The two rivals are locked in a game of chess, where one's failure will inevitably bring down the other.

Besides having most of their security costs paid by the state, Israeli airlines exact a large tax from the Israeli public and foreign visitors in the form of non-competitive ticket prices.

The Open Skies reform of the airline industry is Israel's latest attempt to increase competition and ensure prosperity - next up should be the ports.

After Stanley Fischer dressed down Finance Minister Yair Lapid for trying to increase the deficit target, the Treasury considers its options.

The question is how did companies find themselves paying excess tax, or, more to the point, how did they so badly overestimate their profits for 2011?

New Finance Minister Yair Lapid has lesson to learn from the prime minister's stint in the job.

The recent drowning of three brothers in Ashkelon reflects the reality that the 200,000 Bedouin living in the Negev don't have a single swimming pool - not to mention other municipal services.

Ministerial committee has 45 days to draft new version of the Tal Law, filling holes left by coalition agreement on Haredi IDF draft; here are a few principles their work is based on.

Yael Andorn, new director-general, didn't rise through the ranks or come from outside: She did both.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid apparently intends to couple the pain with steps to 'equalize the burden' and crack down on ultra-Orthodox unemployment.

National Insurance Institute officials base projection on the high end of child allowance cuts that are thought possible. It is expected that Israel could cut somewhere between NIS 2.5 billion and NIS 3.5 billion.

Yair Lapid set off a firestorm when he asserted that an income of NIS 20,000 a month was middle class. But a look at the numbers crunched on the Israeli economy tells us that statistics, in this case, don't tell the whole story.

Outgoing Housing Minister Ariel Atias set criteria for housing assistance specifically for Haredim, going against the Trajtenberg Committee’s recommendations.

A recent Bank of Israel study shows that local authorities have improved their performance over the past 15 years. So why doesn't the same hold for Arab councils?

Is the respected economist jumping the good ship Bank of Israel because economic havoc looms, or is he angling for a different job?

The Finance Ministry seriously mismanaged its budget crisis, but now, by focusing on personal issues rather than public ones, it is allowing its enemies the upper hand.

The Israeli tendency to vote for political parties based solely on their leaders leaves too many legislators unaccountable to the public.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cruel neo-liberal policy from 2003 helped the rich, and the poor. But in 2009, he changed tack.

With all due respect to sheltering mom & pop shops, that terrible norm will destroy the Israeli economy in time.

Senior officials say no Israeli leader wants to prioritize Israel's military needs and allocate funds accordingly, since this could mean missing the next big threat.

Showered with money, the army squanders vast amounts on prestige projects while ignoring basic needs.

Israel can't afford to have it all. Hard choices have to be made and Ben-Gurion showed how it's done. Meanwhile, the gov't cringing before the bellicose defense establishment is letting everybody down.

The attorney general should have what to say on the govt blithely ignoring the law and neglecting to even submit a budget proposal in time.

Israelis typically consider tax evasion a minor infraction, and enforcement has been lax. But in light of the global financial crisis and the billions of shekels at stake, tax evasion is about to get scrutinized.

Weaker elementary school students get only 7% more hours in the classroom, which does little to tackle educational disparities.

IDB Holding Corp., which is struggling to stay afloat in a red sea of debt, made a pair of errors that could prove to be fatal.

A new social movement tries to change Israel by becoming big party politicians' most important constituents: primary voters.

Israel spends less per citizen than almost any other developed country, but if Israelis want more they'll have to pay for it.

While the nation calls for the ultra-Orthodox to shoulder some of society's burdens, the PM is sacrificing the nation's future on the altar of his personal ambition.

As long as the foreign policy debate in Israel is not conducted with consideration for managing the maximum risk entailed in each option, we are not much different from the captain of the Titanic.

Olmert wants to have full authority at a time when he is abandoning all responsibility.

Every profession bears its own type of professional risk, but we must not mistake or confuse the gravity of professional error with the gravity of human error. We must strive to achieve a state in which we do not accept the possibility of error only because the price of error might be human life.

Every profession bears its own type of professional risk, but we must not mistake or confuse the gravity of professional error with the gravity of human error.