"The question is what was agreed upon in the coalition agreement. It was agreed that companies would also contribute from their profits in a spirit of solidarity, just as we all contribute through labor taxes and the additional increase in value-added tax," Tanel Kiik told ERR.

Kiik mentioned that Ligi's proposal is currently just an idea that has been floated in the media and that the Reform Party may present it to coalition partners. However, at first glance, Kiik believes that the solution agreed upon during the coalition negotiations, which involves taxing companies' profits, is more reasonable and fairer from a societal perspective.

"If we instead start taxing the wage fund, we would create additional unfairness among companies. We would be imposing a higher tax on companies with many employees, who are actually contributing significantly to maintaining people's incomes and employment, while not taxing, for example, companies with very few employees or those that manage their work through so-called 'OÜ-tamine' (the practice of offering services or labor through an enterprise as opposed to an employment contract to save on labor taxes – ed.) or other such contractual arrangements," Kiik said.

"This certainly does not align with what was agreed upon during the coalition talks. The decision was very clearly made that the defense tax would be broad-based – contributed to by individuals and companies alike, whether from income, consumption or corporate profits. The current proposal is something entirely different and creates additional inequality among companies," Kiik noted.

According to Kiik, the tax proposals in the coalition agreement are a compromise between different worldviews. "The current solution is already a compromise, and it is certainly not possible for any party to unilaterally change it. This would require reopening the coalition agreement and renegotiating," Kiik said.

"At first glance, this is a strange and unexpected proposal, especially considering that the Reform Party has always said that additional labor taxes should not be raised, as we are already at a high level," Kiik added.

Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi said in an interview with ERR on Friday that he is considering replacing the advance income tax on corporate profits with an additional 2 percent tax on all employee wages. According to Ligi, this tax would be easier to collect and would not be burdensome for companies.

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