With Covid-19 restrictions being lifted in Latvia and across Europe, companies are returning to their normal working arrangements, including staff education and team building events. Event organisers, too, are resuming their business activities. The VAT treatment is clear as long as the customer is a Latvian company and the event is held in Latvia. But what happens if the event is held or the customer established in another EU member state? This article explores key aspects of event organisation services.

As the cost of living is rising day by day, people are struggling to embrace the need to cut carbon emissions as a priority. Tax policy is one of the tools capable of affecting our decisions. So it is very important to devise a long-term tax strategy that would encourage us to change our daily habits and switch over to green energy.

The member states may even introduce a specially reduced rate of VAT (down to 0%, without restricting the supplier’s right to deduct input tax) on supplies of solar panels to private homes and public buildings. A reduced rate may also be applied on supplies of electricity, district heating and cooling, and certain biogas, as well as on the supply and installation of certain very efficient low-emission heating systems. Latvia will have to stop applying a reduced rate on supplies of wood used as fuel by 1 January 2030.

This article explores some of the tax implications for people installing solar panels at their homes.

Four years of work have been crowned with amendments passed to the VAT directive concerning a reduced rate of VAT on 5 April 2022. The new provisions will give the governments of the EU member states greater flexibility in applying the rates and will ensure transnational equality. The reduced rates clearly point to EU shared priorities, such as protection of public health, fight against climate change, and support for the European Green Deal, while preparing to phase out the current preferential regime for environmentally damaging supplies.