Currently, people must declare their income and be taxed on it but the Tax and Customs Board cannot verify that people are fully complying.

Chief Specialist of the Tax Policy Department of the Ministry of Finance Artur Lundalin said: "The tax authority does not know, and cannot reasonably know in its entirety, who are the service providers who operate on these digital platforms, how many there are, on which digital platforms they operate at all and how much they earn from their activities there."

The Ministry of Finance wants to change the law to fix this gap. It will create reporting obligations for both Estonian and foreign digital platform operators.

"These digital platform operators then collect a certain amount of data - about the identity of the service provider and his business activities - and then pass it on periodically, i.e. once a year, to the tax authorities," Lundalin said.

According to the plan, the deadline for submitting data to the Tax and Customs Board could be February 1, and the data to be submitted would relate to the previous calendar year.

Lundalin emphasized the obligation to provide information would not cover, for example, portals which allow individuals to advertise their services only. Nor would such a change lead to or add any new tax, either for digital platform operators or their users.

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