On 27 January 2021, the Slovak government adopted a draft amendment of Act No. 67/2020 on certain emergency measures in the financial area in relation to the spread of COVID-19 (also dubbed “Lex Corona”). The aim of the present amendment is to include expenditure incurred for COVID‑19 testing in tax expenses and to alleviate the eligibility criteria for tax bonus during the pandemic.

Recognition of Tax Expenditure Incurred for COVID‑19 Testing

Under Section 24ab of the draft Act, tax expenditures shall be considered to be expenditures (expenses) of the employers or taxpayers with income earned from business or other self-employment activities that they incurred as a result of the COVID‑19 testing.

Tax expenditures shall be considered expenses for testing incurred:

a) by the employer as a result of the testing of employees, including close persons living with such employees in the same household,
b) as a result of the testing of sole proprietors, including close persons living with the taxpayers in the same household,
c) by the taxpayers as a result of the testing of natural persons who carry out professional activities for the taxpayers in the place of their business (e.g. employees of an external company who carry out logistics activities, service activities, cleaning activities in the form of service provision).

The aforementioned shall apply to the entire pandemic period, i.e. also retroactively for the 2020 tax year.

In the case of testing employees and their close persons, the non-monetary benefits provided in this way shall not be subject to employee tax during the pandemic period.

If the employer has already performed the annual clearance of advances from income from employment for the 2020 tax year or has already issued a proof of taxable income for 2020, the employer may issue a corrective annual clearance of advances or a corrective proof of taxable income for 2020.