Mediation to be sought in row over classified ads website

Take note – story published 6 years ago

Representatives of SIA Internet, the company running Latvia’s largest classified advertisement website ss.lv, decided on August 9 to seek a settlement of their dispute with the State Revenue Service with the help of a mediator, ss.lv lawyer Maris Rukers told LETA.

On August 9, ss.lv representatives will contact Big Four multinational audit services providers to consult them on launching a mediation process in order to reach a settlement based on the principles of good faith.

“Our disagreements with the State Revenue Service are not about tax payments - the company has always been a conscientious taxpayer. Without any doubts, the law gives the State Revenue Service the right to request information about advertisements and the persons who place them. ss.lv has been cooperating with the State Revenue Service for years already, providing all the information required in specific cases. Our dispute with the State Revenue Service is about the amount of information we have to provide about clients’ advertisements and the proportionality of this information,” said SIA Internet co-owner and board member Juris Linis.

He also indicated that the company does not want to move its operations to a foreign country and that SIA Internet wants to carry on with its operations and pay taxes in Latvia.

“Realizing that these disagreements are essentially of technical nature, we see that the dispute between ss.lv and the State Revenue Service has gone too far. Therefore, in order to settle our disagreements, we have decided to ask one of the multinational audit firms working in Latvia to become our mediator and to solve our disagreements together to find a solution that would be acceptable to both sides. We believe that a mediator’s involvement will help in the situation which lately has been full of emotions,” said Linis.

As reported, the State Revenue Service has decided to halt operations of ss.lv, Latvia's largest classified advertisements website, saying that the portal refused to inform the revenue service about automobile dealers who had failed to register with the tax authority.

The State Revenue Service earlier said that the ss.lv website was being used for illegal business operations by persons buying and selling automobiles who had not registered with the revenue service.

The row has been dominating headlines in Latvia since it erupted last week.

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