Last August, we drew your attention to a judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court (9 Afs 147/2000 – 34), which upheld the use of camera recordings of vehicle movements taken by the Police of the Czech Republic by the tax administrator in order to challenge the submitted logbook and, consequently, to deny the right to deduct the purchase of a car.

As a reminder, in the present case, while the taxpayer did submit a logbook to the tax administrator for the purpose of proving its entitlement to the deduction, the logbook seemed unreliable at first glance, e.g. it was already kept for the period before the vehicle was handed over to the taxpayer, and therefore the tax administrator asked the Police to provide information on the movement of the vehicle in the relevant period. The complainant (taxpayer) concluded, however, that the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court violated his fundamental rights and turned to the Constitutional Court with a constitutional complaint.

According to the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Administrative Court then misinterpreted the complainant’s objection, which stated that the Police Czech Republic “processed” the records only at the request of the tax administrator, and not that it “made” the records at the request of the tax administrator. In other words, it is disputed if, by providing the records to the tax administrator, the Police of the Czech Republic could have been processing the records for purposes other than its own. The Constitutional Court therefore overturned the decision in question, stating that the Supreme Administrative Court should consider if the provisions of the Police Act actually allow for the processing and disclosure of the records to other public administration authorities.

It is not currently possible to predict how the Supreme Administrative Court will assess the situation at the moment, but regardless of how it decides the case, we recommend all our clients and tax subjects to keep proper log books, so that they do not need to go through disputes with the tax administrator at all.

Author: Richard Knobloch