Russian propaganda spreads hoax about European sanctions against US - The Slovak Spectator

“Alternative media” produced a variety of hoaxes last week.

Slovaks pay more taxes than Austrians is a hoax

A picture with a calculation comparing the price of work and payroll taxes in Slovakia and Austria has been shared among Slovak Facebook users.

The calculation claims that the same gross salary results in a €300-higher actual salary for Austrians than for Slovaks. This is alleged to be a result of the payroll taxes Slovak employees have to pay: €500 on payroll taxes for Slovaks earning €1,237.07, compared to €174 in Austria.

This information is a hoax: while the Slovak calculation is made with the price of work, the Austrian one is made with gross salary.

The price of work is the overall sum that the employer pays for an employee, the so-called super-gross salary that also includes payroll taxes paid by the employer.

If gross salary, rather than super-gross salary, were considered in the calculation, the Austrian employee would have approximately €1,050 net, while the Slovak would have €928. Thus, the difference in net salaries is closer to €120, not €300.

Read also:Read also:The Sme daily starts a hunt for hoaxes

Nearly 25 percent of Ukrainians feel as if they are Soviet citizens

One in 20 Ukrainian citizens consider themselves to be Russian, and one quarter of all Ukrainians feel as if they are Soviet citizens.

This data has been published by the Russian TV channel Zvezda, under the Russian Defence Ministry, citing a poll from the Ukrainian Groshenin Institute. The poll did take place, but the data that it returned is quite different, according to the stopfake.org website

The website shows that the poll returned results of 92.6 percent citizens saying they were Ukrainian, 5.5 percent Russian, and 3 percent another nationality.

When asked how they would identify themselves, 81.1 percent said Ukrainian, while 5 percent said Soviet citizens.

The mathematics of the Zvezda channel probably comes from the fact that 24.8 percent of the respondents who said they were of Russian ethnicity identified themselves as Soviet citizens (and thus one quarter of the 5.5 percent).

EU sanctions against US are a hoax

The EU will introduce sanctions against the US as a response to the sanctions that Washington passed against Moscow. This will mean limited access of US companies to European banks.

This is another piece of information that the Zvezda TV channel has been broadcasting, citing an anonymous source from Brussels. This has been pointed out by stopfake.org.

The EU is not planning to introduce any sanctions. The article is based on the statement of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said that Europe is ready to act in case the sanctions threaten its energy interests.

The US sanctions could threaten the investment of several European corporations in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Russian state media repeatedly exaggerate the events or statements of European politicians to make them sound more favourable toward Russia. This was the case for the Izvestija news outlet that wrote that Slovakia may leave NATO by 2020.

Read also:Read also:Slovakia to leave NATO is a hoax

7. Aug 2017 at 8:17  | Compiled by Spectator staff

GO TO PAGE 2

Tweet