On 8 December 2022 the European Commission (EC) published proposals for amending the VAT directive (2006/112/EC) and Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011. The proposals are designed to modernise the EU VAT system in the digital age, make it work for companies, and render it more resilient against fraud. The proposals also aim to address VAT issues caused by the platform economy.

To get ready for implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), in this article we are looking for the answers to why an external review of sustainability reports is necessary, what review procedures are expected, and how we can prepare ourselves for this change.

On 17 October 2023 the EU amended its blacklist of uncooperative tax havens that are subject to special taxation procedures. The blacklist now contains 16 jurisdictions, including Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, the Republic of Seychelles, and Russia. As 2023 saw the list being amended several times, there are certain tax aspects that may raise questions, yet national law does not always provide the answers. In this article we take a look at what the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the State Revenue Service (SRS) think about the tax treatment of a Latvian-resident individual’s income from a substantial participation in a foreign company, including dividends from a blacklisted tax haven.