OREANDA-NEWS. November 06, 2009. The Estonian government will probably on Thursday start discussing a competitiveness develoment plan which among other things proposes to set floors and caps on the social tax by the end of the year, the daily Eesti Paevaleht says.

Finance Minister Jurgen Ligi said that the question concerns primarily people who hold several part-time jobs.

"It's fairly certain that we shall lower the social tax floor for those who working in several part-time positions scrape together the minimum wage but at whose expense too much social tax is paid," the minister said.

At the same time he did not promise that the social tax floor would be lowered for all part-time employees as this would be too heavy a blow to social tax revenue.

In the longer term also the question of a social tax ceiling will have to be addressed as the general tax burden is relatively high in Estonia, the minister said. The ceiling has importance with regard to top specialists on whom getting the economy going again depends.