Estonia should increase income earned for the use of the country’s main natural resource, oil shale, according to the National Audit Office.
In its yearbook published on Monday, the audit Office wrote that Estonia should follow the example of other countries that are making better use of their natural resources.
In order to adapt to demographic hanges and maintaining the budget balance, Estonian state has until now mainly focused on cutting spending. However, considering the fact that funds that will be allocated to Estonia by the EU will decrease rapidly in the future, the state should, in addition to keeping expenditure down, to seek additional possibilities to increase budget revenues.
One potential source of income that has not been used until now is to tax the nationally important natural resource, ie oil shale.
Estonia has not introduced any such tax that would be aimed primarily at earning income from oil shale.
The state has until now only charged environmental fees for mining and processing oilshale which are aimed at forcing entrepreneurs to use natural resources economically and to protect the environment.
Toomas Hõbemägi
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