RIGA, October 31 (RIA Novosti's Yury Guralnik) - The Latvian Cabinet has approved tax law amendments granting bigger tax breaks to surviving members of the Forest Brothers guerilla movement, which collaborated with the Nazi regime during World War II, the cabinet's press office said Monday.
Pensioners affiliated with the Forest Brothers, widely regarded in Latvia as a national resistance movement against Soviet occupation, will have their annual tax remission raised to $900, from the current $600, whereas the remission rate for taxpayers receiving no pension will be brought to $1,680, up from $1,110, cabinet spokespeople said.
The Nazi collaborators will also be paid a monthly bonus of $100 by the Latvian Defense Ministry.
The Forest Brothers were active in 1944 through 1953 in Latvia and the Soviet Union's two other Baltic republics. Many of the members fought in the Latvian legion of Waffen SS, an elite paramilitary squadron of Germany's Nazi Party.
WWII veterans who fought against Nazism during WWII are not entitled to any privileges in present-day Latvia.
