Opinion: VAT threshold should be raised to €100,000

Ille Nakurt-Murumaa, president of the Estonian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, believes that the Tax and Customs Board's plan to target companies below the VAT threshold is misguided. In her view, the VAT registration threshold should instead be raised to €100,000 to support small business.

Ille Nakurt-Murumaa, president of the Estonian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (EVEA), has spoken out against the Tax and Customs Board's intention to focus attention on companies below the VAT threshold. In her assessment, this approach is damaging to business and contradictory in nature.

According to Nakurt-Murumaa, the state should not allow small entrepreneurs to be crushed by pressure, but rather create conditions that encourage people to start and grow businesses. Raising the VAT threshold to €100,000 would reduce the administrative burden on small businesses and give them more room to grow.

In the view of the EVEA president, the current VAT threshold is too low and does not reflect today's economic reality. When a company is forced to start calculating VAT too early, a significant portion of time and resources are spent dealing with bureaucracy rather than developing the actual business.

Nakurt-Murumaa emphasizes that many European countries have chosen a higher VAT threshold precisely to support start-ups and small businesses. Estonia should, in her view, follow the same path rather than do the opposite and tighten scrutiny of those who fall below the current threshold.