taxes

In October 2016, IME together with FNF launched \"My taxes\" – a specialized online personal tax calculator, which can be accessed at the kolkodavam.bg website. The name “kolkodavam.bg” translates to “How much do I give?”. We are happy to announce that the website is already available in English.

Why do conditions for doing business and entrepreneurship keep deteriorating when politicians are trying to convince us on a daily basis that they want to improve them instead? No deeds follow their words. Although the government pretends to listen to our concerns, they do not usually take them into account.

This year the Tax Freedom Day comes five days later; regrettably, government spending surpasses economic growth and Lithuanian taxpayers should work more and more just to pay taxes. To compare, Estonia celebrated on May 7, the United States on April 23, and Australia on April 13.

Public tenders are beneficial to the taxpayers who actually pay for them. According to the Public Procurement Office of Lithuania, in 2015, over 300 million euro were spent without a competitive procurement procedure. This means that taxpayers have most likely overpaid in the majority of cases.

The Slovak Ministry of Finance sent the entrepreneurs a special package this week. It contains as many as seven (!) new tax law amendments. The extraordinary content of the tax package is the reason for red alert among entrepreneurs. This attitude is the result of previous negative experiences.

Redistribution may be defined as the transfer of tax revenue to finance the state apparatus and maintain the government. One of the ways to calculate the size of redistribution of an economy is to calculate the ratio between tax revenue and the gross domestic product (GDP).

The presidential project of the fiscal ordinance was supposed to improve this complex situation. The uncertainties in regulations were supposed to be interpreted in favour of the taxpayers. In other words, the responsibility for legal errors (bungles) would lie on the national state and not on physical persons.

Every one of us pays taxes daily and yet only a few could tell how much exactly they pay in taxes per month or per year. The Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI) launched a new tax calculator “Moku mokesčius” (“I Pay the Taxes”), which not only allows Lithuanians to see how much they pay in taxes but also shows how their money is then spent.

The \"Flat Tax Era\" in Slovakia came to a definite end on 1st January 2013. Corporate tax rate of 23% (highest in the whole Central and East European Countries region by the way) became valid instead of the 19% rate. This was considered to be the last nail in the flat tax coffin.

During the global financial crisis, public pensions in Lithuania were cut to reduce further strain on the government budget. The Lithuanian government is now considering backpaying these pensions.