Authors: David Krch, Martina Sumerauerová, Zuzana Zavadilová

As you have probably noticed in the media, the Czech Government announced a package of three major measures in response to the significant increase of fuel as a response to the situation in the Ukraine.

As we expect these measures to impact your business, we would like to provide you with more details:

Amendments to the Road Tax Act and road tax liability

• The Government agreed on abolishing the road tax for all vehicles up to 12 tons of weight. The amendment of the Road Tax Act is currently being prepared.
• The road tax obligation for vehicles exceeding 12 tons of weight should remain in place, but the administration of payments and advance payments should be simplified (the idea is to have only one tax payment).
• In this respect, the Czech Minister of Finance issued a “Decision on waiver of tax accessories and tax advance due to an extraordinary event” on 24 March 2022. This decision waives the payment of road tax advances which are due on 19 April 2022, 15 July 2022, 17 October 2022 and 15 December 2022. The advance payments are automatically remitted with respect to all taxpayers (no further action by taxpayers is required). Please note that this decision does not abolish the actual tax. Please find the full decision here (only in Czech).

Amendments to the Environment Air Act

• The obligation to add a biocomponent to fuel will be abolished to reduce the fuel price.

Inspection of margins for petrol stations and distributors

• There will be a concentration on inspections of the margins applied by fuel distributors and petrol stations to avoid a simulated increase in the fuel price.
• The monitoring is carried out in the form of price reports collected from petrol stations on a daily basis.
• Based on the preliminary results of the first inspection carried out by the Ministry of Finance, the increase in fuel prices was in reaction to the outlook for dramatically rising prices and developments on the commodity exchange.

In addition, the Minister of Finance announced that transport companies will be able to postpone the payment of the value added tax (“VAT”) if they are not able to pay the VAT by the legal deadline. The first postponement should be applicable for VAT paid by 25 April 2022.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We are monitoring the legislation process and we will keep you updated regarding any new developments. Nevertheless, we expect that the proposed legislation changes will be approved.