Odpočet na podporu výzkumu a vývoje - evidence mzdových nákladů

The Supreme Administrative Court recently addressed the issue of separate evidence of wage costs for the purpose of claiming a deduction for research and development support in its ruling (3 Afs 115/2024 – 65).

During a tax audit, the tax authority concluded that the taxpayer did not meet the requirement for demonstrably maintaining separate evidence of wage costs. The company submitted records containing the names of individual employees who were supposed to participate in the project, their classification in the relevant department, their percentage participation in the project, and the derived wage expenses for the individual months during which these employees worked on the project. However, the company was unable to sufficiently demonstrate how it arrived at these figures (particularly the participation percentage in the project).

Witness testimonies indicated that no formal attendance records were kept, there was no attendance system, and working hours were flexible. Oversight of attendance was managed solely by the direct supervisor. The proportion of time worked on the project was determined based on an agreement between the employee and their supervisor, rather than on the actual hours worked. The scope of tasks related to the project was set by the relevant manager, which the court found lacked any objectivity. Therefore, it was not possible to verify whether the established percentage of participation for a given employee corresponded to reality.

According to the court, the purpose of maintaining separate evidence is to create a complete list of all expenses incurred by the taxpayer in the implementation of the research and development project, with the evidence itself needing to clearly indicate the connection to specific expenses incurred during the project. The identification of individual expenses in the separate evidence must be clear enough to eliminate any doubts about which of the individually incurred expenses are included in the records. In other words, the evidence must allow for a clear separation of the expenses incurred during the implementation of the research and development project from other expenses of the taxpayer that are unrelated to the project. The identification of expenses in the separate evidence must be such that it allows for the linking of individual accounting documents with the recorded expenses.

Even though the taxpayer submitted a number of pieces of evidence (notably payroll records and personal cost records), these were insufficient to prove the wage costs claimed in the deduction for research and development support (as it was not demonstrated that the data corresponded to reality).

If you plan to claim a deduction for research and development, we recommend carefully tracking and documenting wage costs associated with research and development projects. It is important to maintain accurate and separate records that clearly demonstrate how much time employees actually spent on a specific project.

Authors:

Martin Hladký

Veronika Kruttová

Jana Kočí