Dalius Gedvilas, president of the Lithuanian Builders’ Association that came up with the idea of profit tax exemption, told the daily that the exemption, which was applied until 2002, was advantageous for business. “Now, when we are competing with the neighboring countries over investments, we will lose our advantage in particular as both Latvia and Estonia definitely have some tax exemptions on reinvested profit. I don’t have any information about other neighboring countries,” he said.
Meanwhile Kęstutis Lisauskas, a member of governmental task group and a partner at the audit company Ernst & Young, believes that any drastic changes would not be rational now, particularly since the country has to meet the Maastricht criteria before adopting the euro.
He explains that the government would have to modify the tax system in order to introduce a tax exemption on reinvested profit in the form proposed by businesses.
