On 16 December 2020, the government approved a temporary waiver of value added tax, which will last until 31 December 2022, for the following:

• in vitro diagnostic medical devices for testing for the COVID-19 disease and
• vaccines against the COVID-19 disease.

In the case of vaccines, the waiver of value added tax only applies to supply of vaccines against the COVID-19 disease, which are approved by the European Commission or the respective member state.

As for the in vitro diagnostic medical devices for testing for the COVID-19 disease, these are devices, which are in compliance with the respective requirements laid down in the Directive of European Parliament and Council or in the Regulation of European Parliament and Council.

You can find detailed information for the decision in the Financial Newsletter of the Finance Ministry 35/2020 from 16 December 2020 and in the Information of the General Financial Directorate.

Further, the government approved a temporary waiver of the value added tax on respirators of the FFP2 class and higher on 1 February 2021, if sale of these respirators takes place between 3 February 2021 and 3 April 2021. The decision on waiver of tax applies to filtration half-masks or respirators and to respirators (always without an exhalation valve), which are intended by the producer for protection of the wearer as well as his surroundings.

The waiver of tax does not apply to medical face masks or the face masks for the public, the so-called “community face coverings”, which include various forms of home-sewn face coverings or commercial face coverings made of cotton or other textiles or materials such as paper.

The payer is entitled to deduction of input tax from taxable transactions received (related for example to production, transport, sale of respirators etc.), which he used or will use for the purpose of supplying respirators. If the payer states the output tax waiver by this decision in the tax invoice, he is obliged to state this tax in the tax declaration, and the recipient of these goods cannot apply entitlement to tax deduction. The payer is authorised to correct a thus determined output tax.

You can find detailed information about the decision in the current Financial Newsletter of the Finance Ministry 8/2021 from 1 February 2021 and in the Information of the General Financial Directorate. If you are currently dealing with this topic, we will be happy to help you with a correct setup of the VAT regime for the above-mentioned devices.