Tax & Legal Update
Tax rate package published in Collection of Laws on New Year’s Eve
Just before Christmas, the Chamber of Deputies overruled the Senate and passed the original version of the tax rate package, which was then published on 31 December 2019 under No. 364/2019 and amends certain tax laws in connection with a plan to…
CJEU: German withholding tax on dividends paid to pension funds contrary to EU law
The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) issued a ground-breaking judgment concerning German withholding tax on dividends paid to foreign pension funds. According to the court, the withholding tax restricts the free movement of capital and is therefore…
Operation of ATMs not VAT exempt
In the Cardpoint (C-42/18) case, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) held that services comprised of the operation and maintenance of ATMs, including their replenishment and software and hardware installation, are not ‘transactions concerning…
Financial administration’s employee bonuses for additionally assessed tax criticised…
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) commented on the possible bias of tax officers who had assessed additional tax for errors concerning research and development allowances. Early in 2016, the financial administration issued rules on awarding…
Breaches of corporate representation rules and their consequences
In practice we often see that according to the entry in the Commercial Register, at least two statutory representatives should act jointly on behalf of a company, while in reality, contracts are signed by just one of them. Is a contract executed in…
SAC: tax-exempt sale of shares covered by tax-exempt dividend payment an abuse of…
In a November judgement, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) confirmed that a transaction consisting of a tax-exempt sale of shares with the subsequent payment of the purchase price using a tax-exempt dividend had no economic grounds other than…
Purchased IT services from a transfer pricing perspective
In a transfer pricing case, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) opined on the role of comparative analysis in evidentiary proceedings. The court, among other things, accepted the technique of assessing the adequacy of costs by comparing the total…
Data leaks could cost you dearly
Last year, one of the historically highest penalties for breaches of personal data protection, CZK 1.5 million, was imposed on a well-known e-shop that had failed to protect its customers’ personal data including passwords to their user accounts. …
Unauthorised download of corporate data on a flash disc a particularly gross breach…
The Supreme Court sided with an employer who had immediately terminated the employment of an employee who without authorisation had downloaded 2.2 GB of work-related data on his flash disc. This is good news for all employers, though it must be…
Due managerial care – a new perspective?
The European Union is preparing a legal regulation aiming to put the finance sector at the forefront of efforts for a greener and cleaner economy. The new regulation will promote sustainable projects that may be loss-making over long periods with…
BEPS 2.0: Revolution in international taxation on the horizon
Following up on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative, the OECD Secretariat published a document containing a new proposal for a unified and global approach to the taxation of the digital economy, BEPS 2.0, introducing a new method…