Tax and Customs Board to Hire Auditors and Debt Collectors
The Tax and Customs Board is in the process of hiring 70 auditors and 10 debt collectors to step up efforts to fight tax evasion.
According to Postimees, one area to be tackled is entrepreneurs who set up a company and then abandon it - about 350 such companies accrue each year.
The Tax and Customs Board says taxpayers have mainly been conscientious and law-abiding in the past year, and as a result 102 percent of the planned tax revenue, or 4.3 billion euros, has flowed into the state budget.
"Certainly there are taxpayers who do not pay their obligations properly and the state must be able to ensure that capability," said deputy director Egon Veermäe.
Veermäe said the authority had received feedback from companies that in some sectors, conditions for competition are not equal, precipitating the hiring. The Tax and Customs Board has even advertised the job openings in trams in Tallinn.
Recently, the teachers' union proposed more efficient tax collection as a way of providing teachers with the 20 percent salary increase they are demanding from the government.
Kristopher Rikken