Amendment on the Act No. 141/1961 Coll., the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Act No. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code

Amendment No. 163/2016 Coll.

With effect from: 1 July 2016

This amendment establishes criminality yet in the stage of preparation for the crime of curtailing a tax, fee or another mandatory payment (tax curtailment) (in Czech: krácení daně). It means that there does not have to be the crime of tax curtailment completed in order to commit the crime, it is sufficient that the perpetrator at least prepares for committing this crime.

The legislator tries to affect the practice of so-called carousel trade which is based on transactions made by purpose of avoiding the due VAT. For this kind of criminal activity a person can be sentenced for up to 10 years imprisonment. Another practical impact of the amendment should be enabling of prosecution of perpetrators while revealing an illegal facilities for production of particularly the tobacco products before they are further distributed.

The amendment should not interfere with the tax or legal counselling. Therefore the person who does not prevent someone other from committing this crime shall not be criminally responsible for this non-prevention alone. (open the official wording)