Price Waterhouse Coopers: Latvia ranks 36th globally according to ease of tax burden

The Baltic Course


Nina Kolyako

November 12, 2008

Latvia ranks 36th globally according to the ease of tax
burden in the country, reveals the latest study "Paying Taxes", carried out by
the auditor company PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) jointly with the World
Bank.

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Three factors were taken into consideration in assessing the tax burden in
each country – number of procedures necessary to carry out the taxpaying
procedure, time needed to complete it and the total tax rate. According to these
factors, on the global scale Latvia has placed 7th, 117th and 42nd,
respectively.

According to the authors of the study, in order to pay all the necessary
taxes, an enterprise in Latvia has to carry out seven payment procedures, it
needs to spend 279 hours per year for calculation and payment of taxes, the
total tax rate amounts to 33%, reports LETA.

 

In terms of ease of tax burden Latvia has outpaced Lithuania, but stays
slightly behind Estonia, in the PwC rankings these two countries were
placed 57th and 34th respectively. One year ago Latvia ranked 20th globally,
pulling ahead of both neighbor countries.

 

It is the easiest for enterprises to deal with tax payments in Maldives,
Qatar and Hong Kong, whereas Belarus, Ukraine and Republic of the Congo are on
the bottom of the list.

 

The survey "Paying Taxes", the results of which were made public in November,
was conducted as part of the World Bank "Doing Business" report. In "Doing
Business" report Latvia was rated as the 29th most favorable country in the
world for carrying out entrepreneurial activity.

 

"Paying Taxes" survey was conducted for the third time, the data was obtained
by analyzing financial reports from medium-sized enterprises.