4th May 2017

Bloomberg: Czech Tax Policy Unmoved by Shock Political Shakeup


The Czech Republic’s political crisis—culminating with the surprise resignation of its prime minister this week—is unlikely to change the government’s current tax policy, according to a senior finance ministry official.

“I am not a politician, but as deputy minister for taxation, I don’t see a problem” from the crisis, Alena Schillerova, the Czech Republic’s deputy finance minister for taxation and customs, told Bloomberg BNA in a May 3 interview. “The political situation has no impact on European directives, which we are obligated to implement.”

Petr Toman, a tax partner at KPMG Czech Republic, agreed that the current political crisis will have a “minimal impact” on the country’s near-term tax policy.

“Most of the laws that the government intended to submit to the parliament had been submitted by the end of April,” he told Bloomberg BNA in a May 2 telephone interview.

According to Schillerova, the last major point on the government’s tax agenda—a tax package introducing faster refunds of value-added tax, domestic reverse charge for the supply of construction staff, and a blacklist of unreliable taxpayers—was signed into law last week.

The few remaining issues on the tax agenda include a proposal to close the legal loophole—the same one that allowed Babis to pay no tax on interest income from 1.48 billion koruna ($60.2 million) worth of corporate bonds he purchased from AGROFERT in 2012—and an amendment to the Czech Republic’s law No. 164/2013 on international cooperation in tax administration, according to Schillerova.

Read full article here.

Members of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic