The mobile application "Tax Hotline" produced by Lithuanian State Tax Inspectorate will help to fight against "black" economy smartly

June 26, 2012, Vilnius. State Tax Inspectorate under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter - STI) presents a new service - smart phones app "Pranešk" ("Tax Hotline") dedicated to taxpayers. The mobile app "Tax Hotline" will supplement the existing services – trust telephone 1882 and e. form – and will help to inform tax authorities about any tax evasion cases. This kind of service is going to be presented for the first time in Europe. The conscious residents will be able to use a new service presented by STI and voluntary informing the tax administrator about unaccounted salary, not giving a receipt, illegal work, or other cases. "The creation of this modern communication manner was inspired by consistently growing number of messages to the trust telephone 1882 during the post economic crisis period, also the growth of smart phones market and improvement of IT literacy of STI clients were identified as additional incentives. However, the main motive to create a new service, is the expected "payback": we have evaluated the benefit of the trust phone service in past six years, and we hope that the appliance "Tax Hotline" will help to return back the millions of hidden taxes to the state budget",– says Modestas Kaseliauskas, Head of STI. In past six years the trust telephone 1882 and e. form (it was established in 2006) have "returned" over the 55 millions LTL (about 16 millions EUR) unpaid taxes to the state budget. The mobile app "Tax Hotline" developed in collaboration with the company Tieto Lithuania, selected by public tender. "Mobile applications offer new opportunities for people to receive services anywhere and anytime as well as for organizations to provide better services in a way that is more attractive and convenient to their consumers. We believe that the initiative of STI to use mobile communication technologies will encourage other institutions of Lithuanian public sector to move their services in a mobile space more actively and make them easier to access for people," – says Mindaugas Butkus, the manager of Telecom, Media & Entertainment Unit at Tieto Lietuva. The mobile app "Tax Hotline" is designed to use within a smart phones with the Android operating system and for the Apple iPhone phones (it can be downloaded free from Google Play page on the Internet or in the App Store). The budget to cover the appliance creation and to maintain its service amounts 70 thousand LTL. For comparison, under the trust phone 1882 information a company in Siauliai have paid about 90 thousand LTL undeclared wages excluding taxes. The information which is submitted to tax administrator about tax evasion cases can be reported anonymously or presenting yourself. STI will be share the received information with other supervisory authorities such as the State Labour Inspectorate, the Financial Crime Investigation Service, Police and others. You can download the app for free from Google Play page: Additional information: STI trust telephone 1882 and e. form was established in 2006. In past 6 years STI has received more than 15 thousands of different reports on tax lesion: in 2010 the number of received notifications was the lowest - 2.2 thousands, in 2011 STI has received over 2.6 thousands, and this year the number of messages has reached about 1.3 thousand. Most of the information was submitted by taxpayers in 2008 - nearly 3.2 thousand messages. During the past 6 years the STI has carried out audits according to the information received by trust phone and on these grounds entrepreneurs had to pay 55 millions LTL of taxes, fines and interests to the state budget. Regarding the received information the STI specialists have identified more than 15,5 million LTL paid as unaccounted earning, more than 800 illegally employed persons were detected. In 2011 according to received information STI specialists have charged more than 8,8 million LTL to be paid as taxes, fines and interests. They found 1 million and 49 thousand LTL paid as unaccounted earnings for workers. Totally in 2011 STI identified over 200 million LTL hidden taxes. For more information: Darius Buta, Press Officer of Lithuanian State Tax Inspectorate tel.: +370 5 2687 513, +370 615 46180, fax.: +370 5 2125 611, e-mail.: [email protected]