News in Brief, June 2024

DOMESTIC NEWS

• The Senate has approved an amendment to the Act on Conversions of Commercial Companies and Cooperatives and other related laws, including an amendment to the Income Tax Act.Decree No. 17/2024 Coll., on the establishment of electronic communication for the fulfilment of employers' information obligations when employing employees from abroad, has been published in the Collection of Laws. It specifies the format, content and structure of the data message for fulfilling the employer's information obligation when employing foreigners.
• Government Regulation No. 134/2024 Coll., amending Government Regulation No. 5/2023 Coll., on compensation provided for the supply of electricity and gas at set prices, has been published in the Collection of Laws.
• Decree No. 138/2024 Coll. amending Decree No. 359/2020 Coll., on electricity metering, has been published in the Collection of Laws.
• On 13 May 2024, a double taxation treaty with the United Arab Emirates entered into force.
• As regards withholding taxes, it will start to apply to income paid or credited on or after 1 January 2025. As regards other income taxes, it will apply to income for each tax year beginning on or after 1 January 2025.
• On its website, the Ministry of Finance has published an updated overview the Czech Republic's treaties on the avoidance of double taxation in the field of income and property taxes in force as of 29 May 2024.
• The government has approved a proposed amendment to the Children's Groups Act prepared by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The amendment simplifies the rules for the operation of children's groups and the administration of the state contribution and introduces neighbourhood’ children's groups. The amendment also stipulates the obligation of municipalities to ensure conditions for the educational care of a child in a children's group from the date of their third birthday to 1 September following their third birthday if they were not admitted to their catchment area pre-school facility.
• The Ministry of Justice has prepared a new electronic manual for the authentication of documents for abroad. The manual provides clear information on the certification of documents by apostille or super-legalisation, certification of translations, and the possibility of exemption from certification.
• EU leaders have formally adopted the final wording of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Regulation.
• The regulation will be published in the Official Journal of the EU in about two weeks. The first rules will start to apply at the end of this year.

FOREIGN NEWS

• Following the European Commission's finalisation of the FASTER Directive on the harmonisation of procedures for withholding tax on income from investment in capital markets, the main points on the EU's agenda include: the analysis of the functionality of a part of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (DAC); continued support to the EU Council in promoting the proposed Unshell Directive (introducing EU-wide minimum substance requirements for companies), the drafting of implementing and delegated acts within the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) including the accreditation of verifiers and the resolution of tax implications of cross-border teleworking and the free movement of workers within the single market.
• The OECD has published a consolidated version of the Commentary to the Global Anti-Base Erosion Model Rules (GloBE) and an updated set of examples.
• Several countries are continuing or finalising the work on amendments to their legislation implementing the minimum tax directive (Belgium, Denmark). Poland has prepared the first draft of the bill to implement the Pillar 2 rules with effect from the end of 2024, including the possibility of early application for the whole of 2024.
• The European Commission has formally invited Poland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, and Latvia to complete the implementation of the Minimum Tax Directive.
• The Slovak Ministry of Finance has issued guidelines governing the content of transfer pricing documentation for 2023.