With effect from 1 January 2023, an amendment to Act No. 300/2008 Coll., on Electronic Acts and Authorised Conversion of Documents, as amended, expanded the range of persons, for whom data boxes are established “automatically” (or regardless of the will of the person, for whom the data box is established). The largest percentage of the new mailbox holders will be natural persons, who are registered in a statutory register, i.e. sole traders and other self-employed persons. All legal entities that are registered in the register of persons and do not yet have a data box will receive a data box. These include, for example, homeowners’ associations, clubs and foundations.

The Ministry of Interior will set up a data box for these persons (if they have not set one up voluntarily already) by 31 March 2023 at the latest.

New users who do not yet have, for example, an individual’s own data box will receive their login details by means of a personal delivery letter.

Data mailboxes will become accessible:

• upon the first login
• but no later than the fifteenth day after the date of delivery of the access data to these persons.

Access to the data box established by law has a significant impact on the form of communication between these persons and the financial administration and on the delivery of documents to these persons by the financial administration.

After the availability of the data box, an entrepreneurial natural person is obliged to make form submissions relating to the activity, in which he or she acts at least partially as an entrepreneurial natural person electronically, which is a topical issue in view of the approaching deadline for filing income tax returns. However, not only the data box can be used for filing in electronic form, but also one of the other possible methods of authorised electronic remote communication, e.g. via the MOJE daně portal. The financial administration will then primarily deliver documents to this person to the data box after the data box established by law has been made available.

However, failure to comply with the electronic form (as well as the format and structure) does not in itself imply a penalty from the tax office. The tax administrator is obliged to invite the taxpayer to remove this defect, and only if it is not removed upon this invitation is the taxpayer obliged to pay a fine of CZK 1,000 (not applicable to VAT, special regulation of Section 101a of the VAT Act, the form submissions specified herein not made electronically in the format or structure published by the tax administrator are ineffective).

The obligation to file tax forms electronically does not apply to persons who have the option to set up a data box voluntarily and at the same time have the option to opt out of using this service, i.e. natural non-entrepreneurs, even if they have a data box available. However, even in this case, the use of electronic filing means that the filing deadline is extended by 1 month.

Further information can also be found on the website of the Financial Administration.

Author: Jaroslava Půtová