The Cabinet of Ministers is to debate proposals for amending the VAT Act that provide for transposing three Council directives that prescribe the VAT treatment of e-commerce by expanding the scope of special VAT schemes and introducing a new scheme for goods imported from third countries or territories. We have written earlier about the expected EU changes to the VAT treatment of e-commerce from 2021.

Amid the international outbreak of COVID-19 and the resulting public uncertainty, we see that crime in general, including fraud, blackmail, money laundering and other economic crime, tends to grow. It basically makes sense to expect such activities from persons that have been involved in illegal activities and tried to exploit the weakest links of the existing legal framework and public order in their own interests. A similar illegal strategy is implemented in the present situation, in which people are focusing on other crucial and urgent issues and becoming less cautious or making rash decisions because of the emergency situation. Practice also suggests that the rising crime rates are directly linked to the circumstances caused by COVID-19.

A survey PwC conducted in late 2019 finds that 77% of Latvian company representatives have asked the State Revenue Service (“SRS”) for assistance or comment, and about a half of their enquiries were concerned with interpreting tax laws.

In times of adverse and significant events, such as a war, crisis or pandemic, there is a certain group of people that will try to exploit the national emergency situation in their own interests. It is no surprise that this phenomenon has now surfaced in response to the global outbreak of COVID-19. At the very outset of the pandemic, cybersecurity companies and news agencies repeatedly warned us about an increase in phishing attacks, with people receiving virus reports from authorities such as the WHO enticing them to download malware on their devices.

We have already informed our MindLink.lv subscribers about tax measures aimed at helping employers, workers and traders cope with the economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. Idleness benefit is one of the support measures for employers and workers. This article explores how to record idleness benefit in the books and how to prepare an employer’s statement for an idle worker.

Due to the emergency situation declared in Latvia for COVID-19 containment, companies as well as central and local government agencies have taken measures to protect their workers, customers and other persons against potential threats to their health in order to continue working to the extent possible in the emergency situation. Under the circumstances, a new type of information about individuals is additionally being gathered and processed, for example, whether they have any symptoms, whether the person has been in contact with anyone who might be infected, including any COVID-19 tests and their results, as well as other information relating to places someone has visited.

The government is working hard to put support measures in place for entities affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Last week the Cabinet of Ministers put into effect a number of rules concerning industries affected by the COVID-19 crisis and how employers in those industries qualify for idle-time benefit. Despite the original intention to restrict tax deadline extensions and idle-time benefit to entities operating in the listed industries, at the meeting of 26 March, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a set of criteria to make an affected entity in any industry eligible for idle-time benefit and tax holidays for up to three years. This article explores what we see as key points.

Today’s accountancy is moving towards a robotised future, as we are automating data exchange, data processing, and drafting of documents. It may seem that undertaking such automation requires some complex and expensive automation software, such as UiPath or BluePrism. That is not the case, though, as manual tasks can be automated with available tools without incurring any extra cost, but using those solutions requires at least a basic set of programming skills.

On 11 February 2020 the OECD published the final version of its transfer pricing (“TP”) guidelines for financing transactions, a document welcomed also by Latvian taxpayers within multinational enterprise groups, by tax consulting service providers, and by the State Revenue Service. We wrote several articles about the draft guidelines in 2018 so this series of articles will explore some of the changes arising from the final version. We will also look at some global trends and key aspects to be considered in analysing financing transactions according to the OECD recommendations.

Many countries have seen a rapid drop in economic activity due to COVID-19 and are trying to adopt some extraordinary tax policy measures in order to limit the damage and protect business. A fast response is crucial when it comes to mitigating the impact of the crisis. This article explores some of the tax policy measures recently adopted in Europe and Latvia.

To deal with the consequences of COVID-19, the Latvian government has decided to add tax solutions to its package of social and business measures.

Governments and health supervisory agencies around the world have launched an all-out fight against COVID-19, but more needs to be done. Several countries have quarantined millions of people, and if the situation deteriorates, more countries might follow suit. COVID-19 has become a serious risk for the Latvian economy as well as globally.