Latvia: Transfer of Information

• Latvia
• United Kingdom

• Tax planning and consultancy - Briefings

10-06-2016

From 1 March 2016 the State Revenue Service will transfer information about private individuals’ income to credit information bureaus in line with the Law On Credit Bureaus, that entered into force on 1 January 2015. Credit information bureaus are entitled to request such provision of information, if it is requested by the user of the credit information to be able to assess the existing or future client’s creditworthiness or to perform credit risk management. The State Revenue Service will only transfer information on a certain individual following a request from a credit information bureau. This regulation supersedes the Cabinet of Ministers regulations on how information on borrowers was provided.

Furthermore, according to the amendments to the Law On Taxes and Fees from 1 April 2016 all credit institutions and payment institutions must submit information about suspicious transactions to the State Revenue Service. The list of factors that render a transaction suspicious is set out in the Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No.1071 of 22 December 2008 “Regulation on the list of indications of suspicious transactions and the procedure on how to report unusual and suspicious transactions”. This has been implemented to detect and prevent crimes as a result of which the tax payable in the state budget is reduced or the amount of tax to be refunded is increased, as well as crimes related to tax evasion and fraud.