Case law
End of never-ending story on concurrence of offices?
Czech judiciary again dealt with the (un)acceptability of the concurrence of offices, i.e. whether members of a corporation’s statutory body may at the same time perform activities for the same company under an employment relationship. This time,…
CJEU: deduction of VAT on input must be allowed upon assessment of additional VAT on…
Recently, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) dealt with two interesting and in principle similar cases that both involve the rectification of incorrectly declared supply in terms of VAT. Whereas national courts denied the customer’s…
Dependent agent permanent establishment
The Regional Court in České Budejovice held that if an agent’s activity forms a separate and essential part of a non-resident taxpayer’s activity, it gives rise to the taxpayer’s permanent establishment in the Czech Republic. The activity does not…
Burden of proof for shortages ascertained
In its judgment No. 1 Afs 327/2017, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) dealt with an additional assessment of value added tax on shortages recognised during stock takings. The judgement provides insight into how shortages are viewed by the Czech…
How private is one’s hard drive at work?
May employers inspect the contents of their employees’ work computers? The European Court of Human Rights recently dealt with this issue in the Libert v. France case. It held that employers may search files that are not clearly identified as private…
CJEU: effect of subsequent modifications of transfer prices on customs value of goods
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued its first ruling on the effect of subsequent adjustments to transfer prices on the customs value of goods imported to the EU. According to the judgement, even if a group’s transfer pricing…
Limits of tax sanctions for Švarc system
In recent years the Supreme Administrative Court has repeatedly ruled in favour of a stricter tax treatment of income from activities carried out by self-employed persons within a Švarc system. However, in its decision of February 2018 the court…
Finally, a more reasonable approach to taking over employees?
Not long ago, the Supreme Court (SC) gave employers quite a scare: it held that when continuing an activity previously carried out by another entrepreneur, they might have to take over that entrepreneur’s employees, even without the circumstances of…
SAC did not accept brokerage fee paid to unrelated party as deductible
The Supreme Administrative Court did not accept a brokerage fee (commission) paid to an unrelated party as a deductible expense despite supporting documents and witness testimonies. The burden of proof is on the service recipient who has to prove…
Electricity meters – installation not required for the entitlement to state aid
According to a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court, the entitlement to aid for renewable sources of energy arose in 2010 based on a lawful licence and the first parallel connection to the network, i.e. without an electricity meter having…
Guidance on determining beneficial ownership
The Advocate General has recently presented her views on a number of cases pending before the Court of Justice of the EU and dealing with beneficial ownership and its interpretation for the purposes of the EU directives. These legal disputes usually…
SAC sets limits to fighting VAT fraud
Where a supply has been affected by VAT fraud, the tax administration demands almost investigative checks of suppliers to maintain the entitlement for VAT deduction; and this may happen at any point in the chain. The Supreme Administrative Court …