Novy pokyn k promijeni prislusenstvi dane

New guidance on the apportionment of accessory taxes

The Ministry of Finance has published the Instruction GFD-D-58 on the remittance of tax accessories in the Financial Bulletin No. 15/2022. The new Instruction is effective from 1 February 2023 and replaces the original Instruction GFD-D-47.

In addition to formal changes, the following points have been added to Instruction GFD-D-58 compared to Instruction GFD-D-47:

• According to both Instructions, the remission of the relevant tax accessories is not possible if the tax entity or a member of its statutory body has seriously violated tax or accounting legislation. In addition, the GFD-D-58 Instruction addsto certain situations the decisive moment at which a serious breach for the purposes of remitting the corresponding tax accessories occurs. For example, if the taxpayer is an unreliable payer, then the decisive moment is the date of publication of information about this fact. 
  
  
• According to both Instructions, the tax administrator may waive up to 75% of the penalty upon application by the taxpayer. In making its decision, the tax administrator will take into account the taxpayer's cooperation in the procedure leading to the ex officio assessment and the frequency of the breach of tax administration obligations. A new provision has also been added to the instruction authorising the tax administrator to take into account the nature, intensity or other circumstances of the source conduct that gave rise to the penalty. If the tax administrator finds that the nature of the source conduct (e.g. abuse of law, tax concealment, knowing participation in tax fraud, etc.) precludes the waiver of the penalty (in other words, there is no longer anything to deduct from), it will reject the application by decision without considering other criteria.
  
  
• The following situation has been added to the list of justifiable reasons for waiving interest on late payments, that in the case that on the last day of the deadline for filing the tax claim the portal of the Tax Administration of the Czech Republic was not fully or partially functional (and it was not a planned downtime of the tax portal) and the Tax Administration of the Czech Republic announced the non-functionality on its website (also retrospectively) and at the same time the payment of the tax occurred in a direct connection with the filing of the tax return in paper form or immediately after the tax portal was put into operation (at the latest on the next working day) in the case of electronic filing.
  
  
• GFD-D-58 also continues to allow for the forgiveness of tax accessories beyond the justifiable reasons listed in the instructions (forgiveness beyond the listed reasons was allowed for the first time in 2020 in response to the case law of the administrative courts).

If you have any questions about the potential impact on your situation, please contact your EY tax team or the authors of this article.

Authors:

Ladislava Zamazalová
Barbora Ptošková