Postimees, Friday, April 26
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Fiscal strategy aims to lower tax burden.
The government's four year fiscal strategy aims to take the tax burden from the current 33 percent to 31.4 percent by the end of the period and to balance the state budget by 2015. Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi said that the strategy is based on the fact that the Estonian economy has entered a phase of stable growth as revenue is estimated to grow by 1.4 billion euros by 2017.
Total expenditure for the period is estimated at 33 billion euros at 14 percent growth by 2017. This year, the government plans to lower the unemployment insurance tax, hike alcohol and tobacco excise duties and raise mandatory funded pension payments for people who continued payments during the state's absence from the program. The government has also decided to drop the social tax ceiling idea as Ligi said the move would cost too much and wound only benefit a handful of people.
Riigikogu passes hunting act.
The parliament passed the new Hunting Act with a slight majority yesterday after five years of deliberations and heated arguments between landowners and hunters. Environment minister Keit Pentus-Rosimannus said that the fact neither side is completely satisfied with the law is a good sign that it is not slanted in either direction and that a compromise has been reached. The new law creates a basis for contracts between landowners and hunters that prescribe the terms and conditions of hunting and also touch on prevention and compensation for damages caused by game. In cases where it proves impossible to enter into contracts, landowners can demand partial compensation of damages caused by wild animals up to the sum of 100 euros per hectare while hunting associations and the Estonian Hunters' Society can put together reserve funds and apply for state support in case of extraordinary disbursements.
Destroyer of police car tyres on trial
At first glance, the criminal case of Anatoli Jõhvik, officially unemployed and in his 50ies, is the ordinary sort. In 1996, he got 12 years in jail for murder. Now, Harju County Court judged him guilty in organised metal theft and possession of explosives. Crimes, which the man, sentenced for seven years, admits.
However, the criminal case includes a peculiar nuance – including accusation in distortion or destruction of property not belonging to him. Namely, Mr Jõhvik was in the habit, every chance he got, of knifing the tyres of police and other law enforcement vehicles.