Surprise from Parliament: The Construction Act also changes taxes!

The approved amendment to the Construction Act, which will come into force on 1 April 2025, brings unexpected changes to the tax legislation.

Amendments to Act No. 595/2003 Coll. on Income Tax:

• the procedure for applying tax depreciation of buildings and structures is modified – for example, it is added to the Act that a building that is part of a set of buildings forming a functional unit is classified in the relevant depreciation group separately;
  
  
• the rules for the gradual reduction or disallowance of the child tax bonus for high-income households are modified. The Amendment modified the previous wording of the Act, when a low-income parent was able to increase his/her tax base by the tax base of his/her spouse and thus claim the child tax bonus in its full amount (when calculating the amount of the tax bonus itself, the income of the other parent was not taken into account at all). The Amendment provides that if the taxpayer’s tax base is increased by the tax base of the other eligible person (spouse), the amount of entitlement to the tax bonus will be based on the joint income of both parents. These revised rules will be effective from 15 March 2025, but will only start to apply to income tax returns for 2025.

Amendments to Act No. 279/2024 Coll. on Financial Transaction Tax (effective from 1 April 2025):

• the range of exempt entities that are not considered to be taxpayers is extended – e.g. schools and school facilities included in the network of schools and school facilities of the SR, except for those that are commercial companies, diplomatic missions and consular offices accredited for the SR and which are located outside the territory of the SR (except for the consular office headed by the honorary consul);
  
  
• the range of exempt payment transactions is also extended to include payments made by a lawyer to his/her clients in connection with the submission or reimbursement of costs following a court order;
  
  
• the tax deductibility of local recharges by taxpayers is adjusted to ensure the same conditions as for foreign recharges;
  
  
• the deadline for the taxpayer (i.e. banks) to explain to the taxpayer the correctness of the tax applied is extended from 30 days to 60 days from the date of receiving the request;
  
  
• the range of financial transactions for which the taxpayer is obliged to notify the bank that the financial transaction is not subject to the financial transaction tax is clarified.