“Defense financing as a direction, it must be very clear, and following this path today, in the current context, the first choice for the strategy remains the promotion of economic growth: let’s increase the tax base, increase state revenues and allocate them to defense considering it a priority, as we have done until now” , – Irena Segalovičienė told News Radio on Tuesday.
She said this amid a political debate about the possibility of introducing a so-called defense tax by increasing the rates of some of the existing taxes.
Specific proposals have not yet been registered, but it is being considered that, for example, VAT or corporate tax rates could be increased to increase the financing of national defense.
According to I.Segalovičienė, it is possible and necessary to discuss new defense taxes, but one would not want people or businesses to be unnecessarily intimidated by new mandatory universal defense taxes.
“We can definitely see now that we can generate income from economic growth, and this is a political priority, and allocate it,” said I. Segalovičienė.
“Any defense tax options need to be talked about in conjunction with tax reform, (…) otherwise, without talking about tax reform, we’re basically simply talking about more taxation of people and businesses without offering them any beneficial changes in return,” she added.
The president’s representatives have previously stated that Gitanas Nausėda would support the tariff increase for defense purposes only if more VAT benefits were introduced at the same time.
The government proposes to allocate 2.75 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to defense next year. About 2.52 percent. GDP will consist of stably allocated budget funds, the remaining amount will be a temporary solidarity contribution from banks and borrowed funds.
The standard VAT rate in Lithuania is 21%, the preferential rates of 5% and 9% are applied to various goods or services. tariffs.
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2024-07-30 12:33:48
