What are an external accountant’s obligations under the Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism and Proliferation Financing (AML/CTPF) Act if accounting services are provided to related companies only? The Administrative Division of the Latvian Supreme Court referred this question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on 4 January 2024.
Effective from 11 January 2024, the Ministry of Finance has amended the Cabinet of Ministers’ Rule No. 1507 of 17 December 2013, ‘The procedure for refunding VAT to a taxable person registered in a third country or territory’, and Rule No. 1514 of 17 December 2013, ‘The procedure for filing a registered taxable person’s VAT refund claim in another EU member state and the procedure for refunding VAT to a taxable person registered in another EU member state’.
The amendments apply in particular to EU and non-EU registered taxable persons that are not established in Latvia but acquire services related to real estate (RE) and claim a VAT refund because the services are acquired to make supplies that attract Latvian reverse-charge VAT.
In January 2024 the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) launched its public consultation on two exposure drafts for sustainability reporting standards for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). One standard is for listed SMEs and the other, a voluntary reporting standard, is for other unlisted SMEs.
Terms such as sustainability, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) are increasingly mentioned in public debates and corporate meetings. The more conscientious companies are not only well-versed in sustainability matters but they have set up a corporate structure that will help them report more efficiently on their sustainability performance. Other companies are still looking for a sustainability expert to help them deal with their sustainability obligations. But can hiring a sustainability expert solve all the problems? And what is the board’s role and responsibility for sustainability performance? Read on to find out.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has been increasing its key interest rates since June 2022 to mitigate the high inflation caused by Covid-19. Taxpayers have good reason to debate whether they should revise the interest rates historically applied in their long-term financing transactions between related parties and apply new rates that are arm’s length and reflect the current economic conditions. This article explores the vision of the State Revenue Service (SRS) and recommendations for mitigating potential transfer pricing (TP) risks.
It was announced in November 2023 that the Electronic Declaration System (EDS) is switching to electronic identification tools and only a limited number of persons will be able to connect to EDS with the username and password assigned by the State Revenue Service (SRS). In response to taxpayers’ questions about the proposed changes, the SRS has issued a letter of explanation. Read on to find out more.
The tax reform in Latvia involved changing its corporate income tax (CIT) system from 1 January 2018. Six years after the new system was put in place, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) has evaluated the CIT reform and prepared an evaluation of the impact of the CIT reform in 2018–2023 and a proposed scenario of further action. This article explores the purpose, content and key findings of this evaluation.
Effective from 1 July 2024 amendments to the Notaries Act introduce rules on a civil partnership that will allow unmarried (including same-sex) couples to legally register their relationship and will give them social and economic protections. The amendments are to take effect together with amendments to the Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act and to the National Social Insurance Act, which extend PIT relief to persons having entered into a civil partnership.
The Ministry of Justice has come up with proposals for amending the Cabinet of Ministers’ Rule No. 1250 of 27 October 2009, “Stamp duty for entering ownership and mortgage rights on the land register”, which could take effect on 1 July 2024. The proposals are designed to enforce the Constitutional Court’s ruling No. 2022-03-01, which provides for extending social and economic protections to individuals who have duly entered into a civil partnership. The proposals have been sent to the Ministry of Finance for approval by 8 February 2024.
No website can function without cookies because they not only make your website functional but also help your company analyse what the visitors to the website are interested in. The National Data Office put together guidelines on cookies in 2022, but creating adequate cookie notices is still a big problem. This article will talk you through steps in creating a pop-up cookie notice on your website that complies with the General Data Protection Regulation.
Setting an arm’s length fee for your intragroup services is one of the transfer pricing (TP) challenges you might face. In 2018 Latvia decided to offer relief for low value-adding services (LVAS) to facilitate this process for companies. If certain criteria are met, LVAS can be analysed under a simplified procedure, meaning the service provider can apply a 5% markup on costs without undertaking a detailed benchmarking study. This article serves to remind you of a key requirement when it comes to taking the simplified approach to LVAS.
We have written before about what a social enterprise is and how it’s different from a business entity in the classical sense. Latvian law has put the Ministry of Welfare (MOW) in charge of fostering and developing social business activity in Latvia, monitoring the development of this sector, and promoting the operation of social enterprises.
We have written before about the popular artificial intelligence (AI) tool, ChatGPT, from both a functionality perspective and a data protection viewpoint. This article explores the latest trends in using generative AI (GenAI) and offers some AI business predictions.
We have informed our MindLink subscribers about the Pillar Two directive’s guidelines, looked at how implementing it could affect companies, and suggested how companies could get ready for the tax changes in good time. This article explores what’s new when it comes to passing the Pillar Two directive into Latvian law.
On 21 December 2023 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) passed ruling C-288/22 on whether a public limited company’s board members are taxable persons for VAT purposes. This ruling is important because it explains what criteria must be met if a person is to be treated as carrying out an economic activity that forms the basis for paying VAT and what factors should be considered to determine whether someone is an independent taxable person.