Tax & Legal Update
Who is liable to pay VAT upon imports – the declarant, or the goods‘ owner?
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) held that the customs declarant, i.e. the ‘regime holder’ is liable to pay tax upon the import of goods from a non-EU country. In the court’s opinion, by lodging the customs declaration, such an entity…
Effect of COVID-19 on transfer pricing of intra-group loans
The current pandemic puts pressure on firms to keep positive cash flows and cash balances. Multinational groups are thus facing the issue of financing their companies. In the most affected industries, access to bank loans has worsened, leading to an…
Changes to tax loss carry-back
The chamber of deputies has passed an anti-crisis tax package that, among other things, introduces the option to carry back tax losses. The originally proposed concept has been further extended: for instance, it should be possible to claim a 2020…
Czech Republic deposits MLI with OECD depositary
On 13 May 2020, the Czech Republic deposited its instruments of ratification for the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI) in Paris. So far, the MLI has been signed by 94…
CJEU: interest on retained excess VAT deduction not to equal REPO rate
The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) answered a prejudicial question concerning a Hungarian company claiming interest on a retained excess VAT deduction from its local tax administrators. The CJEU held that the calculation and amount of such…
Constitutional Court deals with exchange rates upon acquisition of securities
The Constitutional Court (CC) dealt with a taxpayer’s complaint regarding the conversion (to Czech currency) of the acquisition cost of securities whose sale took place in a different taxable period than the acquisition. The CC confirmed the…
Residence of foreigners after the state of emergency
During the state of emergency, the Asylum and Migration Policy Section of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in charge of the foreign nationals agenda, limited its activity to essential matters concerning the residence of foreigners. How is it…
SAC: chaining of tax losses inadmissible
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has dealt with whether it is lawful to repeatedly extend the deadline for assessing tax, which in the event of repeatedly incurred losses, might never end. The SAC held (8 Afs 58/2019-48) that such a ‘chaining’…
Employee protection against employer’s insolvency reinstated
The protection of employees against their employer’s insolvency is not new in the Czech system of law. However, with the adoption of ‘Lex Covid’ in connection with the coronavirus pandemic, it had been temporarily taken away: employees lost the…
Existence of a subsidiary not necessarily constituting a VAT fixed establishment
The Court of Justice of the EU held that the mere existence of a subsidiary does not constitute a fixed establishment for VAT purposes, and that third parties are not required to examine contractual relationships between a parent and a subsidiary.
Detailed guidance on consent under GDPR
At the beginning of May 2020, the European Data Protection Board (formerly the Article 29 Working Party) issued new guidelines on obtaining and proving consent with personal data processing from data subjects, supplementing the existing Article 29…