The government's most far-reaching tax tweaks to date comprises amendments to laws on personal income tax, corporate income tax and tax procedure.

The net effect will be roughly revenue-neutral as far as the national budget is concerned, as the chief aim was to rejig the tax burden to make it more attractive to hire high-earning experts.

The changes introduce a new income bracket between the second and third which carries a 34% tax rate for the annual taxable income of between EUR 20,400 and EUR 48,000.

The top 50% tax rate for the annual taxable income of above EUR 70,907 is being preserved, but tax has been cut from 41% to 39% for taxable income of between EUR 48,000 and EUR 70,907.

To help companies in hiring highly-skilled staff, Christmas bonus and 13th pay worth up to 70% of average pay will now be tax exempt.

To help low earners, the threshold for additional tax credit for the lowest income bracket has been raised from EUR 10,866 to EUR 11,166.

The cuts are estimated to result in a EUR 106m loss of tax revenue in 2017, which is to be partly offset (EUR 60m) through an increase in corporate income tax from 17% to 19%.

Due to tax breaks, which remain unchanged, the effective corporate tax rate will increase from 11.5% to 13.2%.