The Finance Ministry of Lithuania on Wednesday released a statement that it was not going to propose imposing a Lithuania real estate tax on natural persons, contrary to reports in national media. The ministry also affirmed that it had not established a date for introducing the tax, either.

The ministry states that it sees no need to reform the taxation system of the country, because it was practically completed in 2002-2003.

Sources of the commercial television TV3, however, suggest that the government will go back to the issue of real estate tax after parliamentary polls on October 10. According to the news service of the television, the architects of the tax reform recommend taxing the real estate of natural persons with 1 percent tariff.

"International organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund, in fact have recommended that Lithuania introduce the real estate tax, as a measure to add revenues to the budgets of local authorities. But the Finance Ministry has made it clear that it will not recommend this tax to the present government. Meanwhile, the talk that this tax will be imposed after the election is just a speculation of the election season," Finance Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said.

The top official for finances mentioned the decision, adopted by the ruling majority in the previous year, not to tax real estate for natural persons.

The above tax is an integral part of the market economy, so one can presume that Lithuania as a market economy could have such kind of tax some time in the future, the minister says.

"The Ministry of Finance is not envisioning any other taxation reforms, either. The reform took place in 2002-2003, with key laws being amended and aligned to EU directives. So no revolutions in the taxation system are under way," Butkevicius said.