Kubilius happy with tax review team

VILNIUS - Former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius says he is happy that the government’s working group to review the tax system will have only one member who is an active promoter of progressive taxes, and that is professor Romas Lazutka from Vilnius University, reports ELTA.

“The government finally formed one of the working groups they were talking about. The composition of the group for tax reforms really made me happy as it has only one active proponent of progressive taxes - Romas Lazutka. This basically means that the Social Democrats abandoned their post-election revolutions of introducing progressive taxes,” said the Seimas’ opposition leader on Jan. 17.

On Jan. 16 the government formed a working group which will be tasked to review the existing tax system. It will be lead by Stasys Jakeliunas, PM Algirdas Butkevicius’ financial advisor.
“There are two tasks: to assess the current tax system, in other words, to see what share of GDP is redistributed, and also to assess the revenue structure of the national budget in terms of individual taxes. The second task is to try to reduce taxes on labor income,” the PM said.

Butkevicius also said that the group’s leader Jakeliunas will have to personally submit to him the group’s conclusions by April 30.