The Remission of Tax Sanctions in Correlation with the Current Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly had a great impact on tax policies in different states across the world and that naturally results in slight changes in their tax administrations. These changes in tax administration can be perceived as a government’s response to the pandemic which aims to help taxpayers adjust to this new situation, especially by easing tax duties. Every state has its own measures to cope with the problems that have emerged. This article aims to map and evaluate certain steps that the government in the Czech Republic has taken with the purpose of reducing the negative effects of this pandemic. In the Czech Republic, these measures have taken the form of a mass remission of tax sanctions for non-compliance with selected tax duties among selected taxpayers. This text will analyse the mass remission of taxes as a legal instrument, and will also discuss whether such an unusual measure fulfils its purpose, i.e. to mitigate tax duties during the pandemic, as well as striving to present an overview of the various consequences in relation to tax administration.

Keywords

• tax law
• tax return
• tax procedure
• tax sanctions
• income tax
• value added tax
• covid-19
• pandemic
• tax administration