Tax & Legal Update
Discriminatory severance pay
According to the Supreme Court, a collective bargaining agreement’s provision making the payment of severance pay above the statutory amount conditional upon an employee not yet being entitled to old-age pension is contrary to law.
Better times ahead for cross-border trading taxpayers?
The Supreme Administrative Court has recently stood up for a taxpayer who effected a supply of goods to another member state, i.e. a transaction exempt from VAT with entitlement to deduction. The crucial point of the dispute was the taxpayer’s good…
Schrems versus Facebook, take two
Maximilian Schrems, an Austrian citizen, has become known in connection with the CJEU’s ruling annulling the Commission’s decision that declared the USA a safe country to transfer personal data from the EU (‘Safe Harbour’). Now the Court of Justice…
Interest on interest according to SAC? Yes, sometimes
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has recently dealt twice with the possibility of awarding a taxpayer interest on the interest that the tax administrator refused to award and pay for a long time. It is for sure good to know that this…
First country-by-country reports handed in – what’s next?
The first round of country-by-country reporting (CbCR) is over. Each group subject to the reporting duty had to provide selected financial and non-financial data, for the group and broken down by individual jurisdictions, in a special format.
Can we look forward to new VAT rates?
In mid-January, the European Commission submitted a proposal to amend VAT rate rules and adopt a number of VAT measures that should help small and medium-size businesses reduce their administrative burden in connection with cross-border transactions…
OECD proposes new disclosure rules
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an approved global standard for the automatic exchange of information between tax authorities of individual states. It aims to prevent tax evasion and money laundering. Within the CRS, selected information on…
EU removes eight countries from its blacklist
At its January session, ECOFIN crossed off eight countries from the EU tax haven blacklist: South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Panama, Barbados, Grenada, Macao, Mongolia and Tunisia were grey listed instead.
New insurance distribution
A new Czech law transposing the EU Insurance Distribution Directive into our legal system will be adopted at the last moment. It should primarily enhance the transparency of intermediaries and the protection of consumers.
Information duty towards tax administrators extended again
Right after New Year’s Day, the government submitted to the Chamber of Deputies an amendment to the Tax Procedure Code, significantly expanding the extent of information that the tax authority may request from third parties. The extended information…
Changes in VAT Act expected in 2019
The Ministry of Finance has submitted a draft amendment to the VAT Act with planned effectiveness from January 2019 for external comments. The amendment aims to comply with the duty to transpose new EU regulations into our legislation and to…
Changes to Income Tax Act in 2019
Taxpayers are up for major changes starting from 2019. At least according to the first draft of the amendment to the Income Tax Act, released by the Ministry of Finance for external comments. The concept of taxation of individuals is to change…