Latvia: Tax authority to check construction sector wages

Latvia’s State Revenue Service (VID) will contact 260 construction companies that are paying atypically low wages to their workers, LETA reports. Speaking in an interview with LTV, VID director general Baiba Smite-Roke noted that the companies were paying wages that were significantly lower than the average. The aim was to ascertain whether the companies were paying unreported wages. At the same time, VID will contact more than 70,000 private persons, asking them to declare their income. VID has found that the difference between the turnover on their bank accounts and their declared income is EUR 20,000-100,000 or more. Moreover, banks will soon begin reporting ATM cash deposits of more than EUR 750 per transaction to VID.