Too many scams in Estonia and Latvia for foreign business owners

[dotbloup]

It is very sad to see that in Estonia and Latvia, when we are a non-resident and when we come to those countries all the prices are disproportionated for us. They are too greedy and they think we are here to invest millions.

The average salary in Estonia is 850 euros Net / month and the average salary in Latvia is 600 euros Net/month.

Programmer costs according to glassdoor 1000 euros / month for small IT business. However, when i talked about local labour to people in Latvia, they talked about 2000 euros. I think they wanted to take advantage of my ignorance to pay more money for local labour.

Then, the fees of local attorneys were all more expensive than in Belgium. I paid maximum in Belgium 125 euros per hour. In latvia, it was the same 125 euros / month. Then, in Estonia, i paid 150 euros/hour and up to 180 euros / month. One attorney asked me for 1000 euros to do a business research while the same business research cost 350 euros in Belgium.

 

[dotbloup]

I talk about Estonia and Latvia in the same manner because the scams were exactly the same.

Then agents wanted to sell me unnecessary services in Latvia & Estonia like Vat registration (while i could do everything myself online), corporate submission (once again i can do it online). In Latvia, they often forget to tell you that you can obtain a login and a password to submit your corporate tax on the Latvian web portal yourself from your country. In Estonia, it is even easier with the E-residency card but you need to provide management report in Estonian (it is 4 sentences). But some law firm make you believe it is a big thing so that they can bill 4 sentences 140 euros while it should cost 40 euros.

They also strongly wanted to sell accounting while tax audit aren't mandatory for small businesses. However, i can do it from my own location with an accountant that i trust because at the end of the day, the director is responsible for submitting bookkeeping records.

The quality of attorney advice was far to be as good as in Netherlands, Belgium, France for the price.

People were not responsive and tried to keep the price list hidden as much as they could. It was not transparent and clear as in West Europe or in Russia.

 

[dotbloup]

The website from investinestonia dot com tells you that the local distributed profit tax is 20%. It is obviously a lie, it is 25%
They mislead you between the tax base, gross and net and i have found this communication behaviour of a thug.

They (Estonia investment board, Attorney) tell you it is 20% at first because if you pay 10000 euros of dividends and add the tax 2500 it is equal to 10000 + 2500 = 125000 euros. So, 10000 / 12500 = 0,80. In this case, the sum that you have paid to the government is 20% of everything that you have paid because:

2500 is 20% of 12500 euros
10000 is 80% of 12500 euros

but in fact, you have paid 2500 euros on top of 10000 euros. So you have paid 25% of tax because 2500 euros is 25% of 10000 euros.

This type of mathematical trick is not acceptable. Hopefully, i am a specialist of accounting software and i worked in accounting dept. Otherwise, the people who aren't into it will discover that have to pay 25% after 1 or 2 years.

 

[dotbloup]

Funny enough, they are also scams in the restaurants, barlounges and nightclubs of old town of Riga and Tallinn. It is even described in the CIA factbook. When they see foreigners the bill increases.

In safety and security:
Estonia
Latvia

 

[dotbloup]

Sorry i was mistaken the description of Estonian / Latvian scams can be found in the US dept. of state

 

[negon]

The average salary in Estonia is 850 euros Net / month and the average salary in Latvia is 600 euros Net/month.

That's not much. I can imagine if I had this small amount for a living each month I would also be greedy