Platforms will have to report the income of those who rent out their property using Airbnb, offer courier services via Bolt Food or Fudy, sell their own jewelry on Yaga or rent out their vehicle through Autolevi.

The reporting obligation is created after reaching 30 transactions or revenue of €2,000.

Platform managers will be obligated to report both Estonian taxpayers and those of other EU Member States.

"The information on other countries' taxpayers will need to be sent to those countries' tax administrators. Just how the tax authorities in other countries send us relevant information," said Annika Oja, head of natural persons' income and taxation services at the Tax and Customs Board.

The first time platform managers will have to report income information to the Tax Board is by January 31 next year for an overview of 2023.

"From there, the previous year's data will have to be presented at the start of every year," Oja said.

Sellers and service providers must still report their income annually in their tax returns.

"The aim of changes is to give us the chance to more effectively verify the data people report, while things will become simpler for individuals in the future. We plan to start prefilling tax returns, just as is already done with official salary data," the tax authority's representative said.

Failure on the part of platform managers to report income data will result in supervision proceedings and an extended deadline for compliance. The MTA can send platforms penalty payment warnings and eventually order penalties if they still fail to comply.

Finally, the Tax Board can block, either in part or completely, the activities of platform managers that fail to comply with the new obligation.

The obligation was created after Estonia adopted the DAC7 tax directive that requires digital platform operators in the EU to report personal and business information about their providers to tax authorities.

Wolt: This changes nothing for us

Liis Ristal, head of Wolt Baltic, told ERR that the platform has been reporting the income of its couriers, affiliated restaurants and other traders from day one of operating in the Baltic region.

"Therefore, this regulation changes nothing for Wolt or our partners," she said.

Ristal welcomes the change, however, as it ensures equal treatment of market participants and adds to transparency.

She added that many couriers have services contracts with Wolt that paid €3.5 million in labor taxes for its around 2,000 couriers in Estonia last year. Wolt forwards the information of couriers who use an enterprise account or work through some other legal body to the MTA.

Liis Ristal said that Estonia has a great legal framework for platform work and that the Estonian model could serve as an example for other EU countries.

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