Below is a summary of the latest news on the upcoming amendments to the Labour Code (i.e. amendment to Act No. 311/2001 Coll.) and the Tax Code (i.e. amendment to Act No. 563/2009 Coll. on Tax Administration). In addition to the Tax Code, the amendment to the Tax Code should also amend the Income Tax Act (i.e. amendment to Act No. 595/2003 Coll.) and the Value Added Tax Act (i.e. amendment to Act No. 222/2004 Coll.).
Soon after entering into force, the March 2021 amendment to the Labour Code had to undergo further legislative amendment. At the June session of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, an amendment to the Labour Code underwent the first reading. This amendment set out to regulate a number of contentious points.
Below you can find several unaddressed issues regulated by the submitted proposal.
The amount of the meal allowance is adjusted – the employer will be able to grant employees up to 100% of the amount of the meal allowance provided for a business trip lasting 5 to 12 hours instead of the current statutory 55% (i.e. currently no more than EUR 2.81). This applies to each of the statutory meal forms. This increased allowance up to a value of EUR 5,10 is exempt from personal income tax and social security contributions and is considered a tax-deductible expense for the employer.
Less red tape and payment in arrears – the practice has shown complications in the advance payment of meal allowance while maintaining the purpose of the contribution. In order to eliminate these complications, the amendment introduces the possibility to provide meal vouchers and financial contribution in arrears for the previous calendar month. This measure should eliminate problems with the meal entitlement calculation which could not have been taken into account (e.g. unplanned leave, sudden termination of employment).
Measures regarding sole proprietors and other self-employed individuals – sole proprietors will be able to claim EUR 5.10 for meals for each working day. In addition, the obligation to document the amount of meal expenses will be abolished.
Once the amendment to the Act is approved by the National Council of the Slovak Republic, as presented, it will enter into force on 1 January 2022.
After the first reading in June, the following parliamentary session is scheduled to take place in September after the summer break. We will continue to closely monitor the legislative process regarding this field and will keep you informed of any changes.
On 26 April 2021, the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic submitted a draft amendment to the Tax Code to the interdepartmental consultation procedure. It was drafted on the basis of the government policy statement and proposes a number of measures.
Abolition of registration certificates and reduction of the fee for a binding opinion.
As part of the measures to foster entrepreneurship, it is proposed to abolish the so-called “registration certificates” as well as the related obligation to submit them to the tax administrator for the purpose of registering changes. The obligation to return the certificate is also to be abolished.
The amendment also proposes to reduce the fee for binding opinions. Upon filing a request for a binding opinion, the taxpayer will pay the amount of EUR 1,000. A highly reliable taxpayer, on the other hand, will pay half this amount upon filing a request. This is the amount per one opinion.
The draft amendment to the Tax Code also proposes to introduce a tax reliability index. This index is to be used as a transparent and objective rating of taxpayers based on the fulfilment of their obligations towards the Financial Directorate. In case of disagreement with the rating, the taxpayer will be entitled to lodge an objection within 15 days of the date of receipt of the notification. In case of an excellent rating, taxpayers will be entitled to certain benefits, e.g. longer deadlines for response to the tax administrator or for the submission of documents, reduction of the fee for a binding opinion by half. On the other hand, unreliable taxpayers will receive the so-called “malus”, e.g. shortening the deadline for fulfilling obligations in the tax proceedings to 8 days.
To combat tax fraud, the forthcoming amendment proposes to introduce the exclusion of a natural person. This amendment will enable tax administrators to issue a decision on the exclusion of a natural person, who is the statutory body of a taxpayer or a member of the statutory body and seriously violates their tax obligations.
The consequence of the decision on the exclusion is that the excluded natural person, who is the statutory body or a member of the statutory body, must not act as the statutory or the supervisory body in a company or a cooperative.
The tax administrator will issue an exclusion order of the taxpayer if the taxpayer:
- completed tax audit and has tax arrears or arrears of other monetary benefits totalling at least EUR 5,000 for more than one year, or
- submitted value-added tax returns for the tax year and the tax audit ascertaining the eligibility of the claim relating to that tax year was completed.
The natural person is to be excluded from the date on which the decision on the exclusion becomes final and the exclusion period shall be three years from the date on which the decision becomes final.
The provision regulating the summary protocol is abolished due to it not being used in practice.
It is proposed to stipulate that those who are summoned must present evidence, in addition to an excuse, about their inability to participate in the requested tax administration activity for serious reasons.
Tax administrators may also carry out the so-called joint actions for the purpose of taking evidence. These include oral hearings, examination of witnesses, examination of experts, familiarisation with relevant facts established by other tax subjects and familiarisation with means of evidence. The main purpose of this amendment is to reduce the time it takes to carry out the inspection and to increase its efficiency.
It is also proposed to allow the examination of witnesses and experts to be carried out by video conference or by other means of communication technology.
It is proposed to modify the delivery of the tax determination protocol with the help of aids, as is already the case with the tax inspection protocol, where the notice is part of the aforementioned protocol, thus ensuring a more efficient way of delivery, particularly in the case of electronic delivery.
Following the amendments to the “personal bankruptcy” institute in the Act on Bankruptcy and Restructuring, it is proposed to clarify the provisions on the extinction of tax arrears in the event of payment of debt.
The extinction applies to unenforceable tax arrears resulting from the bankruptcy of a natural person, where the extinction of tax arrears will apply to unenforceable tax arrears, both in the case of bankruptcy declared under Article 4 of the Act on Bankruptcy, as well as in the case of bankruptcy declared on the property of a natural person under Article 2 of the Act on Bankruptcy (i.e. Act No. 7/2005 Coll.) and in the case of payment of debt carried out in the context of the provision of Section 206f(4) of the Act on Bankruptcy.
In practice, there have been cases where tax debtors have failed to submit tax returns within the deadline stipulated under the law, resulting in the initiation of the restructuring proceedings and the authorisation of restructuring. In the event a tax debtor submitted tax returns after the restructuring procedure has been initiated and a tax obligation has arisen which became due prior to the initiation of the restructuring procedure, this constitutes tax arrears corresponding to a claim for the purposes of the restructuring. The tax administrator was no longer able to declare the tax arrears in question because the deadline for declaring restructuring claims had expired.
It is precisely due to the objective impossibility of the tax administrator to declare the tax arrears as a restructuring claim that it is necessary to stipulate that such tax arrears do not cease to exist in so far as they result from the tax returns if the deadline for the submission of the tax returns expired prior to the initiation of the restructuring procedure, yet the tax returns have not been submitted prior to the initiation of the restructuring procedure. It is also proposed to consider such tax arrears as a claim arising after the initiation of the restructuring procedure.
An amendment is proposed under which the taxpayer in receipt of a taxable transaction should or may have known that another domestic taxpayer would not pay the entire tax amount.
The tax guarantee will also apply in cases where the consideration for the supplied goods or services is paid to the supplier’s bank account that does not feature on the list of bank accounts published by the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic.
The amendment to the Value Added Tax Act introduces the possibility for taxpayers to verify whether they pay the consideration to the bank account of the supplier that was submitted to the Financial Directorate. Under the amendment, a notification obligation is introduced, whereby taxpayers must use the electronic form published on the Financial Directorate website to submit the details of their bank accounts used for their business activities that should be subject to VAT.
A list of the submitted bank accounts will be published and updated on a daily basis by the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic. In the event that the customer who is a taxpayer sends the payment for goods or services to an account that was not submitted, the taxpayer in question may face the risk of being held liable for VAT on said transaction provided that their supplier fails to pay this VAT themselves.
However, it will be possible for the customer to eliminate the risk of being held liable for the payment of VAT. If the customers fear that the Financial Directorate may hold them liable, they will be able to split the payment and pay the amount of VAT directly to the bank account of their supplier of goods or services held with the tax authorities. In this case, the tax administrator will no longer require the customers to pay the amount of VAT unpaid by their supplier.
Three new lists are to be published on the Financial Directorate website.
Two lists are proposed to be published in connection with the new liability legislation amendment to the Value Added Tax Act. The first one concerns the submitted bank accounts of VAT payers and the second one regards bank account numbers of taxpayers held with the tax authorities (the so-called OÚD, i.e. the taxpayer’s personal account).
With regard to the introduction of the so-called public tax reliability index, it is proposed that the taxpayers and their indexes are published by the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic in its new (third) list.
These lists are to be published and regularly updated by the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic on its website.
The amendment is expected to take effect on 1 January 2022. The deadline for the announcement of bank accounts is proposed to be on 30 November 2021. All VAT payers registered as of 15 November 2021 will be thus required to notify the tax authorities of all their bank accounts used for business activities by 30 November 2021.
The consultation procedure ended on 14 May 2021 and the draft amendment was submitted to the government office on 29 June 2021, where it will be discussed by the members of parliament. We will continue to closely monitor the legislative process regarding this amendment and will keep you informed of any changes.
Should you have any questions on the upcoming changes concerning the amendments to the Labour Code and the Tax Code, please do not hesitate to contact us.
