Extension of the scope of regulated persons for the purposes of the special levy on business in regulated sectors from 31 December 2023

Following the adopted act, which aims at improving the state of public finances, new changes in Act No. 235/2012 Coll., on the Special Levy on Business in Regulated Sectors, are also effective from 31 December 2023.

The most significant change is the expansion of the scope of regulated persons. A regulated person becomes a person or an organisational unit of a foreign person with any authorisation to carry out an activity issued or granted by the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS). This means that in addition to insurance and reinsurance companies, the special levy on business in regulated sectors will newly also apply to e.g. financial agents, consumer credit providers, collective investment funds, asset management companies and others.

A regulated person shall be obliged to pay the levy if its economic result or forecast economic result (the difference between income and expenditure if it accounts in the simple accounting system) reaches at least EUR 3,000,000.

If a person or an organisational unit of a foreign person has, as of 1 January 2024, an authorisation to carry out an activity or a permission issued in another EU Member State and in a state that is a contracting party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA), it is also obliged to pay the special levy on business, specifically if:

• it anticipates carrying out its activities for the whole of the levy period; and at the same time
• its economic result, or an estimate of its forecast economic result (the difference between income and expenditure if it accounts in the simple accounting system), reaches at least EUR 3,000,000 for the immediately preceding accounting period before 1 January 2024. The immediately preceding accounting period is deemed to be the period for which the obligation to draw up regular financial statements and submit them together with the tax return by 31 December 2023 has arisen.

In addition to the above changes, new rates of the special levy on business are set for 2024:

• for regulated persons carrying out banking activities, the levy rate is 0.025 (this rate will be gradually decreased over the period 2025 to 2027);
• for other regulated persons, the levy rate is 0.00363.