Tax reform in Lithuania may be postponed

  • 2022-03-09
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS – The Lithuanian government will not hurry to submit a planned tax reform to the Seimas and, even if the respective proposal reaches the parliament during its spring session, it will discuss postponing the enforcement of changes until a much later date, the Lithuanian business news website vz.lt reports on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told the news website that she basically agreed that “such issues must be discussed rationally and pragmatically considering the evolving situation”.

She said, however, that “the ideas of introducing new tax exemptions should be shelved, at least for some time”, if tax changes, including the raising of certain taxes, were not to be considered.

“We will monitor the situation evolving in Lithuania, in the region and in the world, the economic trends. We are pragmatically thinking people and will take decisions on tax changes considering various factors, including the economic wellbeing of the state and forecasts, budget execution, the situation of businesses, prices, the effect of sanctions, etc.,” Simonyte said.

Even if the government decided to submit the proposed tax changes to the parliament during its spring session, it might simultaneously propose a much later date of their coming into effect, she noted.

“Actually, such projects are not planned to come into effect before January 1, 2023 and their coming into force may be further postponed, for instance, until 2024 or 2025,” the prime minister told the news website.

The government earlier decided to submit, in March and April, various amendments to tax legislation reviewing indefinite tax exemptions and other special tax treatments.