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On 22 December 2021, the European Commission introduced a draft of a minimum tax directive designed to impose on large corporations an obligation to pay at least 15% income tax on profit. The establishment of a minimum tax limits tax competition between countries and is one of the international measures for preventing tax avoidance.

Starting 15 February, personal income tax returns can be filed; for many people, this process is associated with receiving tax refunds. A tax return must also be filed if a person has earned income on which income tax is not withheld (such as earnings from abroad, capital gains from alienation of property) or withholding has not occurred. A tax return must also be filed if the person desires to eliminate double taxation – i.e., if the same income was taxed abroad as well as in Estonia.

A businessman who started a company in Estonia even before the country had regained independence, Kevin Probert-Ehaver, recently sold his life’s work – the three Baltic companies in BK Group – to a major Chinese corporation, Hikvision. The transaction proved more complicated than planned, but in the end he managed to negotiate a price that was triple what was originally offered.

In the beginning of the year, several tax changes were introduced in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

From 1 January 2022, the Estonian Value-added Tax Act will have a new section, 291, setting forth the conditions on the basis of which taxable persons can reduce their tax liability on bad debts. This is a long-awaited addition to Estonian tax law that has previously been discussed but has not gone beyond the draft legislation stage.

From 2022, an updated regulation will take effect, regarding the methodology for determining transactions between related persons. Since it was adopted in 2006, Minister of Finance regulation no. 53 had been in force unchanged.

Grant Thornton Baltic OÜ advised German company RAUMEDIC AG on the acquisition of aktsiaselts A&G. RAUMEDIC AG is a leading developer and manufacturer of systems and components and a partner to medical and pharmaceutical industries. Core business of aktsiaselts A&G is production of medical supplies.

As of 1 July 2021, in addition to the term “low-tax territory”, the term “non-cooperative jurisdiction” has appeared in the Income Tax Act. The amendment is related to the European Union's safeguard measures aimed at preventing tax evasion in transactions with companies located in so-called tax havens.

Grant Thornton Baltic advised Howden Finland Oy, the market leader in Finland and part of the international group Howden Broking, on the acquisition.

The Danish tax authority increased the taxable income of Tetra Pak Processing Systems A/S due to shortcomings in transfer pricing documentation and continuous losses. The Danish Supreme Court reached the conclusion that the transfer pricing documentation filed by the company did not meet the requirements as the documentation lacked a competent comparability analysis.

Maintaining proper accounting on transfer prices and documenting the reasoning for conformity to market value is in the interests of every enterprise, as it avoids tax risks. In preparing documentation, the requirements of legal acts should be considered along with the specific company’s risks and needs.

Companies that sell physical goods to European countries all too often have to grapple with the destination country’s complicated VAT system, but in summer 2021, the situation will become simpler and the administrative expenses related to declaration of taxes will decrease.

In the beginning of the year, several tax changes were introduced in Nordic-Baltic region. In addition we shall highlight tax rates applicable in the Nordic-Baltic region as of 2021.

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) regularly updates its 2017 transfer pricing guidance. It is worth keeping up to date with the OECD guidelines because transfer pricing regulations in Estonia and many other countries rely on the OECD’s guidelines.

In the case of the Finnish tax authorities and A Oy, we can see how incompetent preparation of transfer pricing documentation can create a large administrative burden for the company. Although the case ended in A Oy's favor, they had to spend time and money to have the decision of the Finnish tax authorities to adjust the taxpayer's transfer prices and add additional income tax on the adjusted profits annulled.

Grant Thornton has released a new guide to help international entrepreneurs navigate transfer pricing regulations in different countries and keep up with recent changes.