News in Brief, July 2026

DOMESTIC NEWS
 

• A Measure of a General Nature of the Government of the Czech Republic on the blanket waiver of excise duty on selected mineral oils has been published in the Ministry of Finance’s Financial Bulletin No. 11/2026.
  
• The Activity Report of the Financial Administration of the Czech Republic and the Customs Administration of the Czech Republic for 2025 has been published.
  
  
• The financial administration notes that, in connection with the change in self-employed persons’ pension insurance contributions, the advance payment in the first band of the lump-sum tax regime has been reduced as of 1 July 2026. It has decreased from CZK 9,984 to CZK 9,162 per month. Taxpayers who had paid the advances of CZK 9,984 between January and June 2026 will have an overpayment of CZK 4,932.
   
• The financial administration has announced that it is launching the sixth phase of its Tax Echo project, which uses informal communication to alert taxpayers to identified irregularities in their compliance with tax obligations and allows them to remedy them voluntarily before a tax inspection is initiated by the tax authority. Tax Echo VI focuses on VAT for identified persons.
   
• On its website, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs summarises legislative changes within its remit effective from 1 July 2026 and during the second half of the year.
   
• The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs notes that, from 1 July 2026, employers may use the new employee pre-registration process (PREZEC), which allows them to fulfil their notification obligation before an employee starts work even where they do not yet have all the information required for standard registration. The ministry has launched this process as a tool to combat illegal employment.
   
• For 2027, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs proposes a coefficient of 0.446 for calculating the minimum wage and, for 2028, a coefficient of 0.458. The minimum wage should therefore reach approximately 44.6% of the average wage in 2027 and approximately 45.8% in 2028.

FOREIGN NEWS
 

• The Council of the EU has approved, under the Cyprus Presidency, a report on outcomes in the area of taxation. For indirect taxes, the report mentions progress in negotiations on the tobacco tax package, which is intended to modernise the taxation structure for tobacco products. The proposal is close to agreement but requires further work due to reservations by some member states.
   
• A similar situation applies to the proposal to abolish the EUR 150 threshold for low-value consignments for VAT purposes, which is being discussed as part of efforts to reduce tax fraud in e-commerce in the customs area.
   
• At the end of the Cyprus Presidency, a proposal for an Omnibus Directive and an amendment to the DAC Directive have been published, aiming to simplify tax obligations in the area of direct taxation. The report also notes that the Commission is discontinuing work on four directives regulating direct taxation: the financial transaction tax, the misuse of shell entities, the debt-equity bias reduction allowance, and transfer pricing.
   
• The European Commission has presented a tax simplification package that includes two legislative proposals: the Omnibus Directive (“Omnibus on Direct Taxation”) and the recast of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (“Recast of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation—DAC”). The Omnibus Directive includes, e.g., the elimination of withholding tax on cross-border payments of dividends, interest and royalties between companies within the EU; it introduces common rules for the deduction of costs associated with the acquisition of assets used for research and development; and it modernises the ATAD rules (e.g., by exempting low-risk external financing). The recast of the DAC primarily involves repealing DAC 6 for groups subject to the global minimum tax. These proposals are now awaiting debate in the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. The proposed effective date is set for 2029 (ATAD, R&D allowance) with individual rules taking effect gradually through 2037 (abolition of withholding taxes between companies within the EU).