15. 3. 2018
15. 3.
2018
Last month’s tax and legal news in a few sentences.
- The government passed a proposal to adopt the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI). The Czech Republic’s reservations form an annex to the convention. The Czech Republic intends to cover all its valid double tax treaties in the area of income tax and wealth tax through the Convention (except for the treaty with the Republic of Korea, which has been recently renegotiated and already approved by the Czech government and which contains all required modifications), while it will implement all the agreed-upon minimum standards regarding the explicit stipulation of the purpose and meaning of the double tax treaties, introducing a rule against treaty abuse in the form of a principle purpose test preventing the application of the tax treaties in situations created solely for the purpose of obtaining tax benefits without any other (legitimate) economic substance.
- In February, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled in the case of Slovak health insurance companies (T-216/15). According to the court, any activity involving offering of goods or services (including statutory health insurance) shall be viewed as an economic activity carried out by an undertaking. It is irrelevant whether the objective or the result of such activity is to generate profit or whether social, solidarity or regulatory aspects are of primary importance. To meet the definition, some level of competitive activities in the market of health insurance providers carried out to attract clients is deemed sufficient.
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