Jak je to s povinností správce daně zkoumat konkludentní vyměření daně?

The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) recently addressed the question of the extent to which the tax authorities must examine the accuracy of the information provided in a supplementary tax return within a so called deemed tax assessment procedure (i.e. tax is assessed in line with the tax return filed by the taxpayer without a detailed review of the tax authorities).

In simplified terms, the situation concerned a company that applied for a delayed VAT deduction through a supplementary tax return, to which it attached a cover letter with certain related information (and also submitted a subsequent VAT control report).

The tax authorities performed a deemed assessment based on the supplementary return but subsequently initiated a process that resulted in another supplementary payment assessment, denying the claimed deduction and imposing a penalty.

The company disagreed with this outcome and challenged it in court.

However, the courts sided with the tax authorities.

Among other things, the SAC stated that the tax authorities are generally not obligated to conduct a factual and legal assessment of the claims contained in the supplementary tax return. This also implies that a deemed tax assessment could not establish a legitimate expectations of  the company that the tax determined in this manner would not be further scrutinized through tax audit procedures in the future.

The SAC further noted that these conclusions regarding the tax authorities’ practice in deemed tax assessments have been somewhat clarified and corrected in the Hamé ruling and the Sev.en EC ruling. The conclusions of these rulings must be interpreted in a way that a deemed tax assessment will not be possible if the tax return contains, at first glance, obvious and easily detectable inaccuracies or errors of such a nature that the tax authorities should have identified them without the need for any detailed examination or legal assessment (typically obvious calculation errors, taxation of income that is clearly exempt from tax, etc.). Although the company attempted to argue that such a situation applied in its case, the SACdisagreed.

What can be the lesson learned? Should a cover letter have adesired effect, it should clearly demonstrate the relevant issue beyond any doubt.

Authors:

Radek Matuštík

Jakub Tměj