In October, the Tax and Customs Board (MTA) started using a new TSD solution. This means accountants and businesses can submit data through their software.
MTA said the new system should simplify accountants' work. For example, they no longer need to manually enter data into the MTA web environment.
In total, the new procedure affects about 105,000 businesses. The declaration deadline was November 10. MTA reported that nearly 41,000 declarations were submitted before the deadline, 20% of which came from accounting software.
Accountants disagree with MTA's optimism and declared a strike. During the strike, they will not submit declarations but will provide businesses with tax information.
The Estonian Association of Accountants (ERK) said the new system has caused problems. They call on MTA to work with accountants and software developers to find quick solutions.
ERK board chairman Margus Tammeraja said accountants are not against innovation. But innovations should reduce workload, not increase it.
Tammeraja explained that the new system requires specifying a concrete payment date. Previously, data could be submitted for an entire month without a date.
This makes things slightly inconvenient for micro-enterprises. But for accountants, it's much worse because they serve many clients.
MTA said they are working on the identified issues. They hope the system will work better by the next deadline.
By the morning of November 10, over 80% of businesses had submitted their data. Over 17% used accounting software.
MTA said bottlenecks emerged in the first month, but most have now been resolved. Currently, nearly 76,000 businesses have submitted their declarations.
Madis Laas, head of MTA's income tax department, said the new system is a major change. Businesses now submit their accounting data.
Laas said the goal of the new system is to reduce manual work and enable real-time data monitoring.
MTA said the transition to the new system was not easy for everyone. Technical issues have occurred, but most have now been resolved.
Accountants, software developers, and public sector partners were involved in developing the new system.
MTA said the new system reduces the administrative burden on businesses. Data is entered once and used for various reporting purposes.