Tax & Legal Update
SAC: tax inspections can be initiated by any tax authority
The 2016 amendment to the Act on the Financial Administration gave tax authorities country-wide jurisdiction in two areas: the fact-finding activity in tax administration, and the scrutiny procedures by the tax authorities, including tax inspections.
Delivery of goods or provision of services?
Late last year, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ruled in case 3 Afs 96/2016, dealing with whether a transaction should be viewed as a delivery of goods or a provision of a service; this had an effect on the correct VAT treatment.
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.