On 27 April 2023, Parliament approved amendments to the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act in their final reading. The amendments set a higher threshold for luxury executive vehicles – EUR 75,000 instead of EUR 50,000 (excluding VAT). The new threshold will apply to company cars acquired after 1 June 2023.

This statement does not seem to make sense and is contrary to what the law says about capital gains tax being payable only on income that results from a disposal of real estate (RE). However, a certain taxpayer had to fight in court for his right to be exempt from a tax liability on an RE disposal.

Our previous article looked at the need for a taxpayer’s transfer pricing (TP) file to support his guarantee transactions, and explored a general approach to assessing whether a guarantee transaction is arm’s length. In this article we are discussing aspects to consider when the substance of guarantee transactions is analysed, and we are taking a closer look at methods used in analysing such transactions.

During the pandemic, Latvian companies faced unprecedented challenges around remote working, when the entire corporate culture came up for overhaul. The biggest challenges arose from the need for flexibility as the traditional eight-hour working day at the office was upgraded with the option to connect remotely at the employee’s convenience. Some companies cancelled the full-time office presence requirement altogether and set up alternative working arrangements with variable hours, places and conditions. Flexibility became a key aspect in keeping employees motivated and loyal. This article explores the rapid development of flexible reward schemes.

This article picks up where we left off about public benefit organisations and social enterprises.

Picking up where we left off last week, let’s now explore the role of stakeholders and how sustainability can be integrated in your business model.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently aroused interest in most people. Some are depicting end-of-the-world scenes with AI taking over people’s jobs and later ruling the whole world. Others believe there is no reason to fear AI tools. As always, the truth lies somewhere in between. One of the most popular AI tools today is ChatGPT, which everyone can try out and see what it’s capable of, as we wrote in our recent Flash News. But why are the data protection authorities of European countries beginning to raise the alarm?

People often confuse the terms “public benefit organisation” and “social enterprise”, and there is no readily available explanation about advantages of having either status when it comes to attracting donations and grants. How a public benefit organisation operates makes it different from a company in the classic sense and from an entity with social enterprise status. This article explores the differences between these forms of business and how they can attract financial and other support.

To pick up where we left off last week, this article explores the ESG concept and its components – environmental, social and governance.

To continue the fight against money laundering and sanctions breaches, members of the European Parliament sitting on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs called attention on 28 March to the need for tighter conditions in combating money laundering, terrorism and proliferation financing (“AML”) as well as sanctions breaches. These committees have drawn up a package of documents containing three draft laws, which the European Parliament is to debate in April.

Neither the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act nor the Ukrainian Civilians Support Act (“Ukraine Act”) laid down any special procedures or easy terms for the CIT treatment of donations intended to help victims in Ukraine until the Ukraine Act was amended with effect from 7 April to add a new section, 11.4: Corporate Income Tax Relief for Donors. This article explores the special rule and how it’s supposed to be applied.

Today’s understanding of sustainable growth is based on the idea expressed in “Our Common Future”, a 1987 report from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development: Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This means that countries globally must plan their development in a way that not only boosts their economic development rates but also maintains the quality of life and prevents environmental degradation and overexploitation of natural resources.

On 5 July 2022 the Regional Court passed ruling No. A420275316 on whether interest rates charged on loans between related parties are arm’s length. The ruling emphasises the significance of the economic substance approach and strengthens the understanding of whether the Bank of Latvia (BOL) statistics are suitable for analysing transfer prices (interest rates).

Technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI), seem to be evolving faster than people are able to perceive their significance. This is still a hot topic not only in Hollywood but also in everyday life. AI tools are now being widely used by students and entrepreneurs who recognise potential uses of this technology. This growing interest has led to the creation of many tools of this kind, such as ChatGPT, Bing ChatGPT, Jasper, and Google Bard. This article explores the most popular and capable AI tool, ChatGPT, and its newest version, GPT-4, as well as looking at what it’s capable of doing and what its limitations are.

Outsourcing certain business processes is no longer a novelty when it comes to helping companies to secure flexibility while keeping costs predictable. Carefully evaluating our core processes and separating responsibilities can help us assess what the best sourcing mix will be. Companies are already used to the outsourcing of, for example, accounting or information technology (IT) services. But extending the XaaS strategy to other areas is also gaining traction, for example, by analysing all of your company’s present and future competence requirements to help you achieve your goals.