Rich do as they please – Riga municipality each year assigns significant amounts of public money to different sporting events, large part of that has been given to the Basketball Club VEF Riga, in clear breach of municipality’s own regulations.
Key Criteria
Riga municipality considers several criteria when assessing the public money, among them:
- the achievements of the applicant in the recent years
- tax debts at the moment of application and moment of concluding the support contract
VEF Riga qualifies for the public money based on the sporting merit: it was the Latvian basketball champion in 2023/2024.
However, the tax matter is a whole different story. As of 13.09.2024, according to the state revenue service VEF Riga owes the state significant money in tax debts.
Serving the formality
When reading the regulation grammatically, one has to consider only two dates:
1. when the application was submitted, and
2. when the contract was signed.
On 10.06.2024 VEF Riga did not have a tax debt above EUR 150. This is the day when application to Riga municipality was submitted.
However, just a few days early (on 04 June) the debt was EUR 62’269.88. Coincidence or not, the debt again jumped up to EUR 19’241.57 by end of June. and the club has been in the red for most of the time ever since.
It could be assumed that the club signed the contract before 23 July, because this is the last day when VEF Riga did not have a tax debt (at the time of this writing on 13.09.2024).
Was it a well planned strategy or just a coincidence?
Is it a good governance for the municipality to completely ignore that the tax money is handed out to a private entity with regular tax debts, except for 2 periods* in the year?
One of the most convenient ways to see the current tax debt of the club is through this link: https://company.lursoft.lv/en/basketbola-klubs-vef-riga/40008115274
*(due to the tax system practicalities in Latvia, tax payments are calculated on specific dates and apply to specific periods)