Small business over-taxed

RIGA - More than 70 percent of Latvian business people are dissatisfied with taxes, according to a study carried out by Stockholm School of Economics in Riga lecturer Arnis Sauka and his colleagues from the University of London, reports Nozare.lv. Forty-three percent of those surveyed believe that small businesses should pay significantly less in taxes than they currently do, while 25 percent suggest increasing taxes for large companies.

Businessmen are even more pessimistic about how the state spends taxpayer money. Sixty percent strongly disapprove of current government spending. Twenty percent of respondents are unhappy with the government’s spending policy and only seven percent support it. In addition, only half of the businessmen currently trust the government.
However, more businessmen, 55 percent, say they trust the judicial system.
Seventy percent of entrepreneurs believe that the government does not care about public opinion. Almost as many respondents doubt the government’s competence and claim that they cannot rely on the government making the right decisions.

More than 80 percent believe that the government’s actions are guided by selfish motives, and that it squanders taxpayer money.

Sauka allows for the possibility that most of the businessmen polled blame the governments of the so-called “fat years” for making mistakes that have lead to the current economic crisis.