What does it actually mean to live from music in Estonia? For an independent musician, the answer is more complicated than it sounds.
I have recently been fortunate enough to experience something that many musicians dream of: I can live from my music.
I compose, produce, perform, write, run a music label and organise concerts. After years of combining music with other jobs, I finally have the freedom to make my living from the thing I have always wanted to do.
It sounds wonderful. Well, it is wonderful.
But it is also a struggle that is rarely visible from the outside.
As an independent artist and entrepreneur, I do not simply receive money for making music. I have to create that income through my company, pay the costs of running the business, pay taxes, and then pay myself a salary. There is no employer absorbing the administrative and financial burden behind my work. I am simultaneously the artist, producer, promoter, employer and employee.
At the moment, my income is modest. I pay myself roughly €900 because that is what my business can realistically sustain. Yet for my company to pay me that amount, the actual cost is around €1,370. Approximately €470 goes towards social tax and other mandatory employment related payments.
And this comes after VAT has already taken its share of my business activity.
That is the part of the discussion that is often missing when we talk about taxation.
A €10 ticket is not €10 for the artist
Take a simple example.
I organise a small concert and sell a ticket for €10, including VAT. At the current 24% VAT rate, approximately €1.94 of that ticket goes directly to the state. About €8.06 remains before the costs of actually producing the concert are paid.
From that €8.06, I may still have to pay for the venue, sound, lighting, transportation, advertising, ticketing, equipment and other production costs.
If I am also the artist, whatever eventually remains is not automatically my personal income. It belongs to the business until the company can pay me, at which point employment taxes and other mandatory costs enter the picture again.
This is why simply looking at a ticket price does not tell you what an artist earns.
A €10 ticket may look affordable to an audience member.
For the person organising and performing the concert, it is a very different number.
And the problem becomes even more obvious when the ticket price rises. At €20, approximately €3.87 is VAT. At €30, it is approximately €5.81.
For a large commercial production, these numbers may be manageable within a much larger budget. For an independent artist working with a small audience, they can determine whether a project happens at all.
I am not arguing against taxes
It is important to say this clearly.
I am not arguing that artists should not pay taxes. I live in Estonia, I use its infrastructure and public services, and I understand why taxation is necessary.
The question is whether we should treat every economic activity in exactly the same way when the consequences are not the same.
An independent artist is not a large corporation.
A small experimental concert is not a mass market product.
And a composer trying to perform a new work for 80 people is operating under completely different conditions from a major commercial entertainment company selling thousands of tickets.
Yet the same 24% standard VAT rate applies to many cultural activities that do not qualify for a reduced rate.
The European Union allows member states to apply reduced VAT rates to eligible cultural activities, and several countries with standard VAT rates as high or higher than Estonia’s use substantially lower rates for cultural events. Sweden, for example, has a 25% standard rate but reduced rates including 6%; France has a 20% standard rate and applies a reduced rate to many live performances. (europa.eu)
So the question is not whether Estonia is allowed to tax culture differently.
It is whether it chooses to.
The independent artist lives at the sharp end of the equation
This is where the distinction between established cultural institutions and independent artists becomes important.
Estonia does support culture. There are grants, public funding, the Cultural Endowment, festivals receiving support, cultural institutions and private sponsors. These mechanisms are important and I would never argue against them.
But independent artists often exist outside those systems.
My own work is a good example. I can compose a piece, produce an album, organise a concert, write about music or create a project through my own company, and not always waiting for an institution to commission it.
That freedom is incredibly valuable.
It is also financially fragile.
When an independent artist’s income comes directly from audiences, every additional cost matters. A higher ticket price can reduce attendance. Lower attendance means less revenue. Less revenue means fewer possibilities to pay artists and collaborators. Eventually, the artist simply stops taking the risk.
That is how independent culture disappears.
Not necessarily through one dramatic decision.
Through hundreds of small decisions not to make something.
And the audience is struggling too
I have seen this personally.
A few years ago, I could organise a small concert with a €15 ticket and feel that it was reasonably accessible. Today, even €12 can be a difficult price for many people.
This is not only my impression.
Recent reporting by ERR has highlighted rising festival and concert prices and the increasing financial pressure on audiences. Tallinn Fringe has also reported on the same phenomenon, noting that rising ticket prices, alongside higher costs for food, travel and accommodation, are causing some people to reduce or abandon festival attendance.
This creates a problem at both ends.
The artist needs to charge enough to survive.
The audience needs the ticket to remain affordable.
The state takes its VAT.
The costs of production continue to rise.
There is no easy side left from which to absorb the increase.
What are we actually protecting?
This is why I think the discussion about cultural VAT should not be framed as musicians asking for special treatment.
We should ask what kind of cultural life we want Estonia to have.
Culture is not simply entertainment that exists after people have paid for everything else. Music, language, literature and art are among the things that define a nation. They preserve its memory, express its identity and allow it to evolve.
And independent artists are an essential part of that process because they are often the people willing to experiment without knowing whether the experiment will succeed.
If the economics of independent creation become impossible, we do not simply lose individual concerts or albums.
We lose possibilities.
A new composer does not write the piece.
A small promoter does not book the unfamiliar artist.
A young musician does not get the stage.
An experimental festival does not happen.
The audience never discovers something they did not know they needed.
That is the real cost of making independent culture increasingly expensive.
The current campaign calling for cultural event VAT to be reduced to 9% argues that a lower rate would help keep tickets affordable, support Estonian artists and tours, protect venues and festivals, and create more room for cultural activity.
Whether 9% is ultimately the correct rate is a question that deserves serious economic analysis.
But as an artist who is actually trying to make a living this way, I believe the underlying question is much simpler:
How much pressure can we put on the people making culture before making culture becomes impossible?
I am fortunate to have reached the point where music can support my life.
I want more artists to reach that point.
For that to happen, we need an environment where independent music is not merely possible for those who receive grants or find sponsors, but also viable for those who are willing to build something themselves.
Tax policy will not solve every problem facing musicians.
But it can either give independent culture a little more room to breathe, or take another piece of that room away.
Right now, Estonia should seriously consider giving it some space back.
