The Law on Taxes on State Natural Resources stipulates that every kilogramme of extracted amber is taxed by EUR 20.22. The Ministry of Environment has proposed to increase the tax to EUR 280 per kilogramme if pieces of amber are smaller than 40 millimetres, and to apply EUR 900 tax rate when they are larger than 40 millimetres.
Based on preliminary estimates, there are approximately 112 tonnes of amber in Juodkrantė deposit. If the newly proposed rates are applied, 20 years of exploitation of the deposit would bring EUR 41 million in revenue. 70 percent of the amount would be transferred to the state budget, 20 percent would be left to the local municipality and 10 percent would go to the Environmental Protection Support Programme.
Since the beginning of tensions with Russia over Ukraine, Lithuanian businesspeople are no longer issued licenses to import raw amber from Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, which holds 95 percent of the world’s known amber resources.
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