Several hundred people gathered outside the Lithuanian parliament on Tuesday to protest against the property tax changes being discussed by lawmakers.
"Our goal is to make sure that no housing is taxed. [...] The government has backed off a little bit but those demands are not being fully met," Raimondas Simaitis, the head of the association Atoveiksmis, which organised the protest, told reporters.
According to Simaitis, this is not a protest because "the authorities have listened" and have backed away from their plans to tax the first residential property.
Signatures are also being collected during the event in favour of an amendment to exclude all residential housing, garden buildings and their pertinent from the property tax.
Simaitis also organised a rally against the universal property tax in late April when over 4,000 people gathered in Cathedral Square in central Vilnius.
Having discussed the tax changes proposed by the government, the parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance agreed on Monday not to tax first homes. This was agreed by the ruling coalition's council last week.
The government had proposed to allow municipalities to set the tax-free value of the first home and to apply rates ranging from 0.1 percent to 1 percent for anything above that.
The final property tax model will be decided by the Seimas.
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