Case law

SAC on how to interpret double taxation treaties

If a double taxation treaty can be applied, the tax administrator may not automatically use domestic legal regulations to interpret a treaty’s individual concepts but must apply international law principles and the commentaries to the OECD’s Model…

General meeting’s consent with substantial asset transfers surrounded by dilemmas

One of the powers of the general meeting of a limited liability or joint-stock company is to give consent to transfer or pledge a business establishment or its part “that would result in a substantial change to the company’s existing structure,…

CJEU: entitlement to claim VAT deduction for failed investments

The Court of Justice of the EU dealt with this question in the Ryanair case. In October 2018, the court held that there is an entitlement to reclaim VAT for costs (expenditures) connected with a planned acquisition that eventually did not come about…

Do you have a subsidiary? Beware of indirect shareholding costs

Taxpayers have two options in treating the indirect costs of holding a share in a subsidiary: either to prove their actual amount, or to apply a legal simplification and exclude an amount equal to 5% of dividends received as a non-deductible expense…

Concurrence of offices, yet again

The concurrence of offices is an evergreen in corporate law. The present back-and-forth exchange of opinions between the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court is certainly interesting. But will they finally arrive at a straightforward result?

SAC on proving intra-group services

In November 2017, the Regional court in České Budějovice ruled against a taxpayer in a dispute concerning the provision of services within a group. The court agreed with the tax administrator’s conclusions as to the lack of probative value of the…

Transfer price checks also in personal income tax inspections

Transfer prices between related parties remain a priority of tax administrators’ inspection activities. As much as the general public believes that this only concerns corporate entities and cross-border transactions, the recent Supreme…

SAC: filing additional tax return a preferred option to initiating tax inspection

Where the tax authority has reason to expect that additional tax will be assessed, taxpayers must be given a chance to correct their error by filing an additional tax return. Typically, these are cases where the conclusions of a single tax…

Not granting personal data subject’s request is an administrative decision

The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) dealt with the admissibility of an action for protection against unlawful infringement by an administrative body in a case where a personal data subject was not satisfied with how their request under the…

SAC: Involvement in tax fraud must always be proved by tax administrator

The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) dealt with a case in which the tax administrator denied a taxpayer’s entitlement to deduction of VAT on received taxable supplies, claiming that the taxpayer knew or should have known that they had been…

SAC on proving VAT exempt supplies to another EU member state

In its recent judgment, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) dealt yet again with the case where the VAT exemption of a cross-border supply of goods was challenged by a tax administrator. Apart from the specific circumstances of the case, the…

Active defence pays off in tax fraud investigations

The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has brought a new perspective on proving the taxpayer’s involvement in a transaction affected by tax fraud. While remaining consistent with its previous case law as to the distribution of the burden of proof,…