The Lithuanian government will propose to set up a special fund to collect funds for defence through higher taxes, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė announced on Wednesday.
“The Finance Ministry is in the process of drafting a law on a special fund that could accumulate these funds,” Šimonytė told reporters after a meeting of politicians and business and trade union representatives.
“The government would then propose the Seimas to establish such a fund in the first place and to provide for the sources of its financing,” she added.
According to the prime minister, this is done to convince politicians that the higher taxes, once agreed and introduced, will actually be used to finance national defence.
According to Šimonytė, politicians and social partners are nearing an agreement on several sources of increased defence financing, including a corporate income tax surcharge.
“We have a few of these proposals, which – I won’t say that anyone is happy about it – are more or less acceptable. Or at least a lot of people have found that to be the case,” the prime minister said.
“First of all, there is talk of a corporate income tax surcharge that could go towards financing defence,” she stressed.
This was the third time that politicians and representatives of businesses and trade unions met to discuss ways to provide additional funding for defence in Lithuania.
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