NVO law institute

Study visit in Budapest

vaida — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:10:56 +0300



Between May 25 and 26 ECNL hosted a study tour for five NGO-experts from Lithuania in support of the "Improvement of the NGO legal framework" project managed by the NGO Law Institute. The overall goal of the study visit was to explore the issues regarding the possible introduction of public benefit status in Lithuania. The aim of the two-day program was for key experts to become familiar with essential considerations concerning PBO status as well as learn about tools used to enhance the transparency and accountability of the NGO sector besides legislative mechanisms.

The research “Issues of concern in the NGO legal framework” is finally published

roman — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:31:38 +0200

View research

The project “Improvement of the NGO legal framework” is over: what is next?

roman — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:30:39 +0200

On 31 December 2008 the project "Improvement of the NGO legal framework" implemented by the NGO law institute was completed. The project was aimed at evaluation of the NGO legal framework in Lithuania, based on the experience of other countries, laying down the guidelines for its improvement and initiating the amendments of the legal acts that would benefit the development of the public sector.

The research named "Issues of the NGO legal framework in Lithuania" was the main activity in the course of the project; it presented the major issues of the regulation related to non-governmental organizations. The research was carried out, presented to and discussed with various ministries and organizations in Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda; most of them have expressed their support of the proposed amendments of the legal framework. The most important result is that topical NGO law issues were brought back on stage and the interested persons were encouraged to discuss them and think over possible ways to improve the situation.

After the research was presented and discussed as a scientific basis for al further activities, a workgroup of several interested non-governmental organizations was created; the new workgroup has concentrated on the specific plan to implement the proposals in the laws of the Republic of Lithuania. It was decided to start with the issues of the NGO definition and the attribution of NGOs to public legal persons: the draft laws were prepared for this part; they were presented to related ministries and several parliamentary groups of the Seimas.

The project term has expired as soon as the processes have started, nevertheless one could not deny that the processes prove that the main goal was achieved - the amendments of the new and more beneficial legal acts were initiated and developed.

New tax reform and NGOs

roman — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:29:19 +0200

On 1 January 2009 a range of legal amendments came in force changing many of the tax rates and exemptions: there were so many changes that only a few would have managed to keep track of all of them. Therefore we have decided to make a brief overview of essential amendments of the laws related to non-governmental organizations, spike several rumours and discuss the things that were left unchanged during this reform.

Corporate income tax

Probably the hottest and most important amendment, not only to the non-governmental organizations but to other legal persons as well, was the change of corporate income tax rate; from January 1 the profit is taxed 20 percent instead of the previous 15 percent. On the other hand, the exemptions of non-profit entities and the income beyond 25 thousand litas were left intact; they will be taxed 0 percent as it used to be.

We are excited to inform that the non-governmental organizations and other non-profit entities were granted one additional exemption; it is provided in Article 5 of the Law on Corporate Income Tax that from now on "the income received from activities benefiting public interests and used in funding of such activity shall not be considered the income from commercial activities of non-profit entities." The IST was inquired about the actual meaning of the amendment; we expect to comment on the reply in the near future.

Finally, as concerns the regulation of corporate income tax, we assure that all exemptions concerning charity and sponsorship were left intact during the recent tax reform.

Personal income tax