Employers’ call: help expose pointless red tape

The Confederation of Estonian Employers, which represents major Estonian employers and professional associations, calls on everyone to report unnecessary bureaucracy and bring together pointless state regulation, outdated laws and other requirements that hinder business.

“Defence capabilities and a competitive economy are uniquely linked. If our economy does not generate enough added value, higher taxes will not be able to cover growing defence needs. Even the smallest bureaucratic requirement that an entrepreneur has to comply with, but which adds no value to his business, places an unnecessary burden on society. It means unnecessary costs, red tape and slows down the economy. The focus of business must now be on increasing competitiveness,” stressed Hando Sutter, CEO of the Confederation of Estonian Employers. “As the administrative burden and red tape has crept up on businesses over the years, removing one new restriction is not ambitious enough as it may not reduce the actual burden. The approach must be decisive.”

The Confederation of Employers’ Unnecessary Bureaucracy public brainstorming is open to all until 4 April at www.employers.ee/halduskoormus. You can submit examples of unnecessary costs, time-wasters or barriers to flexibility for businesses. You could also post specific examples of where EU legislation has been more strictly transposed.

It will then analyse the proposals received and use them to draw up a systematic set of proposals for cutting red tape for the Government of the Republic. As the incoming coalition has pledged to make cutting red tape one of its priorities, we hope to see concrete results by the end of this year. We will keep a close eye on the implementation of the proposals and report back on the changes made.

11 examples of unnecessary or burdensome requirements already proposed:

• With the amendment of the Road Traffic Insurance Act, the requirement to insure forklift trucks and tractors operating in enclosed warehouses or factories, for example, also came into force this year.
• 2019. In 2007, an Act amending the Alcohol and Advertising Act was enacted, restricting the visibility of alcohol displays in shops. The changes had no impact on alcohol consumption, but did require investment from vendors.
• The obligation to appoint an occupational environmental specialist and to carry out a risk analysis already applies to organisations with two employees. Employers have proposed that the obligation to carry out both risk assessments and to appoint a specialist should be targeted at larger employers or areas where the likelihood of accidents at work is higher.
• Applications to national information systems could include pre-filled data (e.g. residence, turnover, etc.) already held by the state.
• The documents and statements submitted by the notary could be reflected in the commercial register without the need for a judicial assistance procedure.
• Reporting 3.0 added some information fields to the employment register to get rid of labour and wage reporting related to work, but statistical reports have not disappeared.
• The draft Waste and Packaging Act sets different and stricter targets for producers compared to European regulations.
• The requirement to produce a detailed EKOMAR report (Enterprise Comprehensive Annual Return) every five years means that businesses will have to reorganise their systems and make additional investments to provide detailed data to Statistics Finland every five years, which the business does not collect in the course of its activities and which will not be needed by anyone for the following four years. This reporting could be abandoned.
• Statistical reports containing data to be reported to the tax authorities and/or in the annual report, such as the number of employees, the amount of gross wages, etc., should be abolished.
• The company’s R&D activity report is too detailed and not user-friendly, containing data that companies do not collect in the normal course of business.
• Employers can apply for social tax credits when hiring a disabled or partially disabled worker. Often the person does not want to provide the employer with information about the loss of capacity to work and so the employer cannot apply for it. The obligation to apply is also an unnecessary administrative burden, as the information on both employment and reduced capacity to work is available to the state. It is proposed that in the future, the decision to grant social security contributions should be taken automatically when an employer employs a person with reduced or no work capacity.

Read more about examples of unnecessary red tape at www.employers.ee/halduskoormus.