| Abstract [eng] |
Corporate Income Tax Reliefs Promoting Entrepreneurship and Investment in Lithuania. The paper analyzes and evaluates the corporate income tax reliefs in the Lithuanian legal framework, which in the author's opinion promotes entrepreneurship and investment in Lithuania, discusses the problems arising in practice for companies using these reliefs, and assesses the risk of abuse of reliefs. It also assesses whether tax incentives are achieving their objectives – whether the tax policy formed in Lithuania reflects the wish to attract investment and entrepreneurship in Lithuania. The first part analyzes the concept of tax reliefs - assesses the relationship with the general principles of tax law. The objectives of tax reliefs are defined, the description of the forms of tax reliefs in the doctrine of law and its evaluation are presented. The second part analyzes specific corporate income tax reliefs - investment project relief, FEZ relief and R&D relief. Each of these reliefs is analyzed by distinguishing three essential elements of the tax relief - the subject of the tax relief, the conditions of application and the content of the relief. Therefore, the regulation of these tax reliefs in Lithuanian laws is presented in detail, the application of tax benefit conditions in practice is analyzed, emerging problems and uncertainties for taxpayers are discussed. Suggested solutions to how the regulation of corporate tax reliefs could be improved in order to achieve the objectives of these tax reliefs are presented. The third part analyzes the potentially applicable corporate income tax relief in Lithuania, which could further contribute to attracting investment and promoting entrepreneurship in Lithuania. The current initiative for a large investment project is analyzed and a proposal is made to assess the possibility of transforming corporate tax into a tax that would be collected not annually, but when companies decide to distribute profits within the company. The results of the work reveal that in the application of the income tax reliefs in question, taxpayers face uncertainties, not all of which are explained in detail in the commentary to the Law on Income Tax or in other publications of the tax administrator. It is also concluded that the existing initiative for a large investment project should be implemented in the Corporate Income Tax Act in order to attract large investors. An additional initiative to change the moment of taxation of corporate profits should also be considered, as examples of practice show the benefits. |
