Analytics, Baltic, Financial Services, Taxation

Lithuania dropped from last year’s position (44th) to 55th and Latvia came down three notches, to the 62nd place. In Latvia, companies spend 290 hours and in Lithuania, 175 hours to fill in their tax returns.

The index that ranks 183 economies worldwide according to the ease of paying taxes.

The study points at the municipal sales tax introduced in Tallinn, which made paying taxes costlier for enterprises – which was the reason for Estonia’s decline in the rankings. It was also noted, however, that the Parliament has decided to abolish the local sales taxes from the beginning of next year.

According to the study, it takes an enterprise 85 hours per year in Estonia to comply with the tax requirements while the EU average was 208 hours and the global average was 227 hours.