Latvia, Markets and Companies

Among the companies liquidated this year, most or 94.9% were limited liabilities companies, 63.2% had halted their business operations before liquidation, 34.1% had a tax debt.

Of the companies liquidated this year, 6% had submitted their annual reports for 2018. In 50.5% of cases their turnover last year was EUR 0.

Among companies liquidated this year, 13 were also established this year, but the average age of the liquidated companies is nine years. 2% of the liquidated companies were registered in the past three years.

Lursoft representatives also said that in order to meet the Moneyval recommendations and improve the situation in preventing money laundering, the Companies Register has started to automatically delete inactive companies from the register. For example, on January 14, 6,645 companies were liquidated, on February 13 – 3,408 companies, on March 29 – 749 companies, which together account by more than half of the companies liquidated so far this year.

One third of the liquidated companies had tax debts. Based on information from the State Revenue Service, the aggregate tax debt at the moment of liquidation reached EUR 188.33 mln. The biggest tax debtor was Vectors company with a EUR 13.59 mln debt. 25 of the liquidated companies had tax debts of more than EUR 1 mln.