“Everybody must pay taxes. In their turn, the SRS must contribute to improving motivation of individuals and businesses to pay taxes,” outlined the President of Latvia.
During the meeting, Raimonds Vējonis emphasised that the SRS should work transparently and honestly to restore the recently damaged reputation of the Service because it affected the confidence in the performance of the SRS and spending of the collected taxes for the needs of the entire society.
“The government is obliged to provide a predictable fiscal policy, collect taxes fairly, and spend the budget revenue for the public interest. The government must prove by its deeds that the health care is provided to the population in the amount necessary and that every employee can be confident in his or her pension in the future,” said Raimonds Vējonis.
The head of state drew the attention of the Director-General to the fact that the new tax strategy and its practical implementation would become an essential point of reference, including the future operation of the SRS. “The policy shall also be a beginning of new life in the functioning of the SRS as well. In parallel to the drafting of new tax policy, Latvia’s businesses also expect significant improvements in tax administration this year,” stated Raimonds Vējonis.
Director-General of the SRS Ilze Cīrule informed the President of Latvia of the latest information on tax collection, and she mentioned that the tax revenues were collected as planned and forecasted. In 2017, they planned to collect 7.6% more budget revenues than in 2016. The Head of the SRS stressed that the SRS would participate intensively in the development of the new tax strategy with the aim of simplifying the tax collection process.
The President of Latvia criticised the current actions of the SRS in combating the shadow economy, and he reprimanded that no criminal action was initiated yet on so-called envelope wages, although criminal responsibility was stipulated for that offence since 2016.
“As the current results do not indicate any progress, the competent authorities should decide on additional instruments for the eradication of envelope wages. Perhaps we should discuss the opportunities to bring the employees involved in receiving envelope wages to account as well. Thus, it would be possible to protect the rights of employees, social interests, and they would be motivated to engage in the fight against envelope wages responsibly,” proposed the President of Latvia.
Raimonds Vējonis urged the SRS to combat the schemes of envelope wages, undeclared income, and VAT fraud schemes more intensively and boldly since the abovementioned dominated in the structure of shadow economy.
The President of Latvia wished the new leader of the SRS to continue the initiated dialogue with the sectoral and business organisations to promote cooperation and set next operational goals of the SRS.