By Irma Janauskaitė, Aina Mizgirdė, LRT TV, LRT.lt.

Lithuania’s new government program pledges not to introduce new taxes, but the designated finance minister has acknowledged that higher levies could still be imposed during the term, drawing warnings from industrialists and frustration from farmers.

Kristupas Vaitiekūnas, tapped to head the Finance Ministry, said Monday he cannot guarantee that tax rates will remain unchanged. “We are not prepared to promise that tax rates will never change, given the geopolitical situation, international trade tensions, tariffs, and relations with the United States, frictions between the West and the East,” he said.

The pledge of stability comes just months after farmers staged summer protests in Vilnius against the previous government’s tax reform. Parking old tractors outside parliament, they warned that steep increases in the personal income tax could devastate agriculture. Lawmakers ultimately raised the tax, though farmers secured a smaller increase than other groups and left satisfied.

Farmers’ Union vice chairman Gedas Špakauskas said tax breaks remain vital for producers who may hold harvests until prices stabilise, sometimes selling two years’ crops in a single year. “They would have to pay a very large personal income tax at the increased rate,” he said.

But officials later discovered loopholes that allowed anyone with a farmer’s certificate – whether or not they actually cultivated land – to benefit. Vaitiekūnas said that ambiguity will be eliminated. “The exemption should apply only to income from agricultural activity,” he said.

More read: LRT.LT