Business, Estonia, Financial Services, Markets and Companies

A sixth of the nearly 78,000 Estonian companies decided last year to support the State Treasury with a fine of nearly 5,000 kroons each instead of submitting their business year reports that the accounting law demands. The total size of the fine can reach 60 mln kroons. A year earlier, less than 7,000 companies failed to submit their reports.

Estonia’s best known dairy company Tere is threatened by the highest punishment, deletion from the Business Registry if it doesn’t submit its 2008 business report by August this year. The official deadline for submitting the report was last summer.

Tere’s board member Ülo Kivine said there was no justification or point behind the step and the report will be submitted in the next few days. Tere was fined in December and received a deletion warning in January.

IT company Helmes received a fine warning in January for not submitting its reports. Helmes’s owner Jaan Pillesaar explained that the chief accountant of the company got ill during the reporting period and the company asked for an extension.

Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry considers the business year report the cornerstones of trustworthiness. “Every company takes obligations to clients and investors and the business year report is the least it can do to show its trustworthiness,” said clothes industry Baltika’s manager Meelis Milder, adding that it might be that many companies have actually ended their operations and don’t consider the reports necessary.

Heads of the Chamber think that the sanctions are tough enough. “It is no laughing matter if the company’s activities go through forced ending or it isn’t allowed to participate in state procurements,” said Liviko’s council chairman Enn Kunila.