Lietuva in brief - 2012-01-12

Nationalized Snoras Bank temporary administrator Simon Freakley, before announcing that there were was no chance to revive the bankrupt bank, was very quick to receive payment for his services, Bank sources suggest, reports iQ.lt. Copies of receipts show that on Nov. 24, a total of 2.4 million euros was transferred from Snoras. In the following five days a similar sum of money was again transferred. The Bank of Lithuania confirmed that the money was paid to Freakley and his team of specialists. Previously, it was announced that services of the interim administrator would cost almost 145,000 euros a month. Copies of the receipts reveal that 4.83 million euros was transferred from Snoras to the company Zolfo Cooper in three transactions. Freakley is a senior partner at Zolfo Cooper.

Seimas’ Committee on Rural Affairs has expressed its concern about a new version of the law on land tax, which introduces taxing land according to its market value, but does not completely meet the requirements of agricultural land evaluation criteria, specifically on the main criterion of the land’s productivity, reports ELTA. Therefore, the committee proposed to the Ministry of Agriculture to form a working group, which would examine the possibility of taking land’s productivity into account, while estimating the tax value of the farmland. A new version of the land tax was adopted on Dec. 21, 2011.The law introduces the land value tax rate of 0.01 to 4 percent. The law introduces changes in taxation; the land will be taxed according to its market value, not its productivity. Taxation of land, or any asset, according to its productivity is essentially a way for the state to intrude and tell the owner what to do with the property. A new land taxation order is expected to come into force on Jan. 1, 2013.