4 ms·

How do things like director expenses work? If I setup a company that rents me a house, a company car, and caters all my meals, I don’t need to pay any taxes?

bragh 9y ago
The Tax and Customs Board does not look too kindly on that, because those would be considered costs not related to your business and you would have to pay all the ordinary employee taxes (fringe benefit taxes) on that. If your company's office is located in the same apartment you live in, then you could argue that at least partially your costs are entrepreneurial costs - it is how sole proprietors (FIE - füüsilisest isikust ettevõtja) operate. Do not know of a way to get around food costs though, it is not as if you could mark down every lunch as marketing/sales/client meeting with the limit to representation expenses - 32 EUR per month + 2% from gross salary per month. As an example, the latest hooplah around enterprise taxation is related to using company cars during private time. If an employer does not allow to use company cars for private purposes, then they will be marked as such in a public registry. If you have a feeling that your neighbor is using his company car outside of work, you can check it and report it to the TCB: http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-naabrivalve-korras-maksuametile-ules-anda http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-na... But if the company car is not registered as such, then you will have to pay fringe benefits tax 1,96 EUR per engine kW per month for newer cars and 1,47 EUR per engine kW per month for cars older than 5 years. As an exercise to the reader, think about how flat taxation per kW affects companies with electric cars.
Strom 9y ago
There's a principle concept that every expense has to be for the purpose of doing business. If it's not, then it will get hit with income tax, and sometimes even payroll taxes. In practice nobody really monitors these things and many do abuse the system to cater for themselves etc. However if you find yourself an enemy who will report you (even just on suspicion), then you better have a convincing case for the tax authority and/or judge as your accounting gets audited. There are a bunch of special benefit rules that can be used for lawful cost savings though. There are lawful ways to split car costs with company money, there are lawful ways to get a tax-free daily allowance if you're traveling for business, limited to some X days per month. In general I think the company tax rates are low enough to do everything lawfully. Taking out profits as an owner incurs a 20% income tax to the company and zero taxes to the individual. In addition, if you've taken out profits before, then the company income tax is 14%, up to the amount that equals the average of the last 3 years. So if you take out similar profits on a regular basis, the tax rate is only 14% on everything.
- davidverhasselt 9y ago
  > In addition, if you've taken out profits before, then the company income tax is 14%, up to the amount that equals the average of the last 3 years. So if you take out similar profits on a regular basis, the tax rate is only 14% on everything. As I understood it, this is only so for distributing profits to legal entities. If you're distributing to a private person, the private person will have to pay a new 7% income tax which sums up to a total of about 20%. This of course only matters if the private person is tax resident in Estonia. I find the PwC tax alerts very informative to be kept up to date on the tax laws in Estonia: https://www.pwc.com/ee/en/press-room/tax-alerts/estonian-tax-alerts.html https://www.pwc.com/ee/en/press-room/tax-alerts/estonian-tax...
  - Strom 9y ago
    You're very much correct, thanks for pointing that out! I hadn't seen any mention of the new 7% individual rate in any newspaper articles or even accounting firm articles. I now inspected the actual income tax law [1], and sure enough the 7% clause is there. One one hand this means a slight net tax increase to 20.02% [2], on the other hand if the total individual income is less than 25200€/year then a part of that 7% will be returned. -- [1] Unfortunately not yet translated to English https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/107072017022 https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/107072017022 [2] 100 * 0.86 * 0.93 = 79.98
    - davidverhasselt 9y ago
      Indeed, I too had difficulty finding exact information on this new change. I then stumbled upon the PwC tax alerts where it was very transparently explained. Personally I wouldn't mind if they would take a bit longer to implement changes like this, so everyone can be accurately informed and optimise in time.

bragh 9y ago

The Tax and Customs Board does not look too kindly on that, because those would be considered costs not related to your business and you would have to pay all the ordinary employee taxes (fringe benefit taxes) on that. If your company's office is located in the same apartment you live in, then you could argue that at least partially your costs are entrepreneurial costs - it is how sole proprietors (FIE - füüsilisest isikust ettevõtja) operate. Do not know of a way to get around food costs though, it is not as if you could mark down every lunch as marketing/sales/client meeting with the limit to representation expenses - 32 EUR per month + 2% from gross salary per month. As an example, the latest hooplah around enterprise taxation is related to using company cars during private time. If an employer does not allow to use company cars for private purposes, then they will be marked as such in a public registry. If you have a feeling that your neighbor is using his company car outside of work, you can check it and report it to the TCB: http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-naabrivalve-korras-maksuametile-ules-anda http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-na... But if the company car is not registered as such, then you will have to pay fringe benefits tax 1,96 EUR per engine kW per month for newer cars and 1,47 EUR per engine kW per month for cars older than 5 years. As an exercise to the reader, think about how flat taxation per kW affects companies with electric cars.

Strom 9y ago

There's a principle concept that every expense has to be for the purpose of doing business. If it's not, then it will get hit with income tax, and sometimes even payroll taxes. In practice nobody really monitors these things and many do abuse the system to cater for themselves etc. However if you find yourself an enemy who will report you (even just on suspicion), then you better have a convincing case for the tax authority and/or judge as your accounting gets audited. There are a bunch of special benefit rules that can be used for lawful cost savings though. There are lawful ways to split car costs with company money, there are lawful ways to get a tax-free daily allowance if you're traveling for business, limited to some X days per month. In general I think the company tax rates are low enough to do everything lawfully. Taking out profits as an owner incurs a 20% income tax to the company and zero taxes to the individual. In addition, if you've taken out profits before, then the company income tax is 14%, up to the amount that equals the average of the last 3 years. So if you take out similar profits on a regular basis, the tax rate is only 14% on everything.

davidverhasselt 9y ago
> In addition, if you've taken out profits before, then the company income tax is 14%, up to the amount that equals the average of the last 3 years. So if you take out similar profits on a regular basis, the tax rate is only 14% on everything. As I understood it, this is only so for distributing profits to legal entities. If you're distributing to a private person, the private person will have to pay a new 7% income tax which sums up to a total of about 20%. This of course only matters if the private person is tax resident in Estonia. I find the PwC tax alerts very informative to be kept up to date on the tax laws in Estonia: https://www.pwc.com/ee/en/press-room/tax-alerts/estonian-tax-alerts.html https://www.pwc.com/ee/en/press-room/tax-alerts/estonian-tax...
- Strom 9y ago
  You're very much correct, thanks for pointing that out! I hadn't seen any mention of the new 7% individual rate in any newspaper articles or even accounting firm articles. I now inspected the actual income tax law [1], and sure enough the 7% clause is there. One one hand this means a slight net tax increase to 20.02% [2], on the other hand if the total individual income is less than 25200€/year then a part of that 7% will be returned. -- [1] Unfortunately not yet translated to English https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/107072017022 https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/107072017022 [2] 100 * 0.86 * 0.93 = 79.98
  - davidverhasselt 9y ago
    Indeed, I too had difficulty finding exact information on this new change. I then stumbled upon the PwC tax alerts where it was very transparently explained. Personally I wouldn't mind if they would take a bit longer to implement changes like this, so everyone can be accurately informed and optimise in time.