Proposals for amending the National Social Insurance (NSI) Act were sent to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice for approval on 10 November 2022. This article explores some of the proposed changes.

In November the OECD published the 2021 statistics for the mutual agreement procedure (MAP) covering 127 jurisdictions and practically all MAP proceedings around the world. This article explores global MAP trends in 2021, looks at Latvian statistics and analyses how last year’s statistics in Latvia compare to global trends.

Council Regulation on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices came into force on 8 October 2022. Its purpose is to prescribe a set of measures that will contribute to the member states’ energy supply and mitigate the impact of high energy prices on consumers and the member states’ economies. This article explores several groups of measures the member states are required to adopt under the Regulation.
 

The Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act has been amended with effect from 14 November 2022. This is a follow-up to our article “Personal Income Tax Act to be amended in 2022”. Changing the PIT Act affects some other pieces of legislation, so amendments to the National Social Insurance (NSI) Act were sent to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice for approval on 10 November 2022.

Section 5(1) of the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act lists payments made to non-residents that are taxable at source. Section 2(2) lists persons that are not subject to CIT. In practice this raises the question of whether non-CIT payers are liable to withhold it on payments made to non-residents. This article answers the question.

Dropping all the hype about the Great Resignation and stiff competition for talent, we invite you to look at investing in your people from a few rational down-to-earth perspectives. Based on a number of PwC surveys, you might end up finding a good argument in your budgeting process in favour of investment initiatives targeting your people.

When it comes to drawing up non-financial statements or sustainability reports, there are a variety of guidelines and standards that prompt companies to identify and approach their various stakeholders in order to work with them in the course of preparing non-financial statements. It’s even more important to build collaboration in order to accommodate your stakeholder views and visions when your company is setting its key directions of sustainable development and goals it wants to achieve.

Multinational enterprise groups tend to centralise their functions, such as support functions in a region that is economically important and advantageous. Particularly interesting cases of transfer pricing (TP) determinations and valuations involve a group’s distributors (intermediaries) that make centralised purchases of goods from the group manufacturers and sell them on to the group wholesalers. This article looks at TP challenges in such economically linked transactions within the same global supply chain.

The business community keeps asking questions about restrictions imposed by the sanctions and how this affects doing business with existing and new clients in the future. The EU has adopted a number of sanctions packages since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. This article explores the eighth package launched on 6 October.

This article picks up where we left off last week.

Several sections of the Taxes and Duties Act define a taxpayer’s obligations. Section 15.2 requires the taxpayer to prepare a local transfer pricing (TP) file within 12 months after the end of the financial period and, depending on the circumstances, to submit it to the State Revenue Service (SRS) for the financial period:

Situation 1 – within 12 months after the end of the financial period; or
Situation 2 – within one month after receiving a request from the SRS.

This article is meant just for you if you are interested in learning more about a crucial relief in Situation 2. The taxpayer has the right to revise his local TP file every three years if he satisfies a certain condition and meets one annual requirement.

In March 2021 the European Commission passed a proposal for a new directive  aimed at putting mechanisms in place that will help employers provide equal pay for men and women. According to the draft directive, the pay disparity is still about 14%. Inequality becomes evident when we convert this percentage into days: compared to men, women actually have to work 51 days a year without pay. The main aim of the new rules is to minimise gender inequality in pay. While gender equality is a topic that has been discussed in public at length, statistics do not give us a reason to believe a balance has been achieved on the issue of pay. To achieve this, the European Commission has come up with new solutions that will mean new statutory obligations for employers.

The Excise Act was amended on 13 October 2022 with effect from 13 February 2023. The amendments are primarily made to transpose Council Directive (EU) 2020/262 of 19 December 2019 laying down the general arrangements for excise duty (recast) (the “new directive”), which will replace Council Directive 2008/118/EC of 16 December 2008 concerning the general arrangements for excise duty and repealing Directive 92/12/EEC (the “old directive”). More amendments stem from the CJEU’s ruling of 13 January 2022 concerning Mono SIA vs the State Revenue Service (SRS). The court disallows a situation where the ability of diplomatic and consular offices to claim an excise exemption is subject to the condition that payment for goods be made by bank transfer. This article summarises some of the key amendments to the Excise Act.

To measure the taxable income of businesses and individuals correctly, we need to assess whether self-employed expenses are associated with the conduct of business. In applying personal income tax (PIT), self-employed persons should follow the rules of the PIT Act and the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act, which in certain cases may cause disagreement with the State Revenue Service (SRS). This article explores some of the self-employed expenses the SRS may challenge if they are deducted as business expenses.

Amendments to the Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act were announced on 31 October 2022. The outgoing government has managed to introduce a number of important legislative changes. This article explores changes to the special rules of section 11.13, governing how income from an investment account is determined.