Prague, Dec 29 (CTK) – The Czech new system of compulsory e-registration of sales (EET) has not met the expectation as a recipe for the state to raise VAT revenues and eliminate dishonest entrepreneurs, Julie Hrstkova writes in daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) today.
Instead, the EET has become a PR means to boost the Finance Ministry’s publicity, she writes.
New Finance Minister Alena Schillerova said she appreciates the EET mainly as a tool ensuring just business conditions, rather than a step improving the tax collection. It is no wonder in a situation where the EET’s contribution to VAT revenues lags far behind the expectations, Hrstkova writes.
For the same reason, the ministry does not worry about the delay in the planned third and fourth phases of the EET, caused by the abolition of the relevant legislation by the Constitutional Court (US), Hrstkova writes.
Apart from the US, the EET is also opposed by a number of lawmakers, who have proposed that the EET should not apply to the businesses with a yearly turnover below one million crowns, who are not VAT payers. At present, many entrepreneurs reportedly keep their turnover below one million with the only purpose not to be VAT payers, Hrstkova writes, adding that VAT payers face an enormous paperwork duty every month.
The EET has got stuck halfway its planned implementation. Its further phases are unlikely to make it through, and the entrepreneurs involved in the first two phases, introduced in 2017, can expect certain reliefs which parliament will undoubtedly pass next year, Hrstkova writes.
The appointment of Andrej Babis’s ANO minority cabinet which controls all ministries, including those supervising the observance and enforcement of laws, raises the impression that the domestic bodies will hardly take an objective approach to the Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest) case of a suspected EU subsidy fraud involving Babis, Josef Koukal writes in Pravo.
On the contrary, the European [OLAF anti-fraud office’s] enquiry into the case has been effective, Koukal writes.
Really, the situation is different if a suspected fraud is criticised by [Babis’s Czech political rival Miroslav] Kalousek (TOP 09) or if it is revealed by an all-Europe independent body of investigation, Koukal writes.
After receiving the OLAF’s final report about its Capi hnizdo enquiry, the Czech Finance Ministry pledged on Thursday to consider its releasing to the public. It is interesting to see Alena Schillerova, Babis’s favourite, dealing with her first task in her capacity as the new finance minister and analysing what of the OLAF report, which speaks of Babis and his family, should be released and when, Koukal writes.
People may welcome the information as something to help them decide in the January presidential election, he adds, alluding to the alliance between Babis and Milos Zeman, the incumbent president who seeks re-election.
Politicians defeat each other in political battles, but never a political battle has been won by “anti-someone,” Martin Zverina writes in Lidove noviny (LN) in reaction to the expression “anti-Babis” that has won the LN’s Word of the Year poll.
The word anti-Babis, derived from the surname of Andrej Babis, a billionaire ANO leader, former finance minister and current prime minister, encompasses a large spectrum of persons, positions and emotions. It expresses phenomena such as the search for an equal rival of Babis as well as people’s natural resentment of any power monopoly, Zverina writes.
The only one to remain unaffected by the anti-Babis expression is Babis himself, who uses the word frequently in his vocabulary, Zverina writes.
However, political rivals can be defeated only by politicians who are self-confident and who do not base all their steps on the negation of rivals’ steps but mainly on their own ideas and visions, Zverina writes.
Babis is still waiting for a rival to defeat him. Anti-Babis’s worshippers should pray for Babis’s health and prosperity, since with Babis’s political decline, anti-Babis would decline as well, Zverina concludes.
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