LITHUANIA 5 LEVELS UP IN PAYING TAXES 2011
Lithuania has moved 5 levels up from 44th to 51st position in the Paying Taxes 2011 study from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC), measuring the ease of paying taxes across 183 economies worldwide as well as enabling an assessment of tax systems around the world from the point of view of business over a six year period.
The Paying Taxes 2011 study looks beyond corporate income tax at all of the taxes and contributions that the case study company must pay, and considers their full impact on business in terms of both their tax cost and their compliance burden.With the Total Tax Rate (percentage of profit paid out in taxes) making 38.7 % Lithuania surpasses EU's average of 44.2 % and the global average of 47.8 %. The case study company will spend 175 hours a year to comply with tax laws in Lithuania, in comparison with the averages of 222 and 282 hours in Europe and the world, respectively. In the overall rating, Lithuania is also positioned much higher than the economies of neighbouring Poland, also Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary which couldn't make the TOP 100.
Maldives, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are rated highest in Paying Taxes 2011 followed by other tax "paradises" of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and other non-EU countries.
The key findings of Paying Taxes 2011 show that since 2006, 60 % of the economies in the study have made significant changes to make paying taxes easier. 40 economies made significant reforms in the last year. Reducing rates of profit tax is still the most popular reform and 17 economies did this in 2009/10, including Lithuania which cut its profit tax from 20 to 15 % in the beginning of 2010.
Check the full Paying Taxes 2011 study
