“Delete that defamatory nonsense,” T. Valys tells M. Lingė in one of the Facebook messages published by the conservative on Saturday evening.
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“Or I will take you to court,” says another.
This is how T. Valys reacted to M. Lingė’s post published on Friday, in which he called the Ministry of Finance’s proposal to reduce the tax on lottery organizers from 18% to 10%, requiring the remaining part to be allocated as support, “cynical and perhaps even corrupt.”
“Instead of the finance minister publicly explaining normally why he decided to reduce taxes on lotteries and create conditions for an 11 million budget loss, he writes evening letters demanding to delete my post and even threatens with lawsuits,” M. Lingė says in a Facebook post published on Saturday along with screenshots of the messages.
In the messages addressed to the politician, T. Valys quotes a Criminal Code article that talks about criminal liability for publishing information that does not correspond to reality and defames honor and dignity, as well as the applicable civil liability for this.
Also quoted is a provision of the Seimas statute that a parliamentarian’s legal immunity may be revoked due to defamation.
According to M. Lingė, such a reaction from the minister strengthened his suspicions that the ministry’s initiative is of dubious origin.
On Friday, the ministry announced that the changes to the Lottery and Gambling Tax and the Lottery Law registered by it will not change the overall tax burden on lottery organizers. According to it, although the rate will be reduced to 10%, the remaining 8% of the nominal value of tickets sold must be mandatorily allocated to support.
According to it, as a result, part of the funds obtained from lottery organizing activities would be distributed not through the state budget, but directly used for the public good.
This procedure was also in effect before; it was changed by the Seimas in 2021, and the 18% tax on lottery organizers came into force in 2023.
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