According to a communiqué by the finance administration, beginning as of the 2018 assessment period, employees need no longer submit what is known as the “statement of the wage tax payer” to their employer in paper form, but may instead also do so via an electronic form.
The finance administration has issued a communiqué addressed to employers and to those who are obliged to pay wage tax (i.e., the employees), informing them of the new option for employees to submit the “taxpayer’s statement” (see further below) either in paper form or in electronic form as of the 2018 assessment period; the same also applies to the acceptance, by the finance offices, of mandatory documentation made available by the employee to the employer. The statement of the wage tax payer (i.e., the employee’s statement) comprises e.g. the claim for tax allowances (personal allowance, spouse’s allowance, allowance for students, allowance for placing one’s child in a pre-school facility, allowance in compensation for the mandatory introduction of EET revenue reporting), and for tax bonuses (e.g. for having children), various certificates to evidence the claims made, as well as the reporting of expenses which bring down the tax base (such as interest on mortgages and similar loans, private pension contributions, life insurance premiums, trade union membership fees, charitable donations, etc.), and, where applicable, the employee’s request that the employer prepare and file the annual wage tax return on their behalf.
The finance administration further informed employers that – if the electronic form is used – employees must be identified beyond doubt e.g. by way of electronic signatures, or by implementing and using an internal information system. As of 2018, it is entirely at the employer’s discretion whether they are going to allow, alongside paper statements, also electronic forms (or both). The recommendation is to draft an internal policy for making such statements via electronic forms, in which the employer sets out the terms and conditions under which electronic statements are allowed, and makes sure that the submitted information is compliant with the law, complete, and accurate; also, the pertinent regulations for archiving mandatory data for a certain period must be observed.
The finance administration has already published the taxpayer’s statement in.xml format for the needs of payroll accounting departments and for use within employers’ corporate software products; in addition, a form application has been prepared for performing the annual billing of wage tax pre-payments, in this form, taxpayers may also make their claims with respect to deductions from the tax base, tax bonuses, and tax allowances (to the extent that they have not already been claimed in the tax return). The form “Taxpayer’s statement” will already be available in December 2017, whereas the above-mentioned application will only be released in the course of 2018 – after all, this application can only be filed after tax duties and related duties have been satisfied (e.g. by making the prescribed pre-payments towards wage tax and paying social security contributions, qualifying for tax exemptions or allowances, etc.) for the preceding assessment period, and thus no sooner than in 2019. The employer’s confirmation of income and on contributions withheld and transferred may newly also be issued electronically. This “income statement” is needed by employees who for one reason or another wish to prepare and file the income tax statement on their own.
Source:
Act No. 170/2017 Coll., amending the Income Tax Act (Act No. 586/1992 Coll. as amended
http://www.financnisprava.cz/cs/danove-tiskopisy/upozorneni-mf-k-tiskopisum/Sdeleni-tiskopis-Prohlaseni-poplatnika-DPFO-ze-zav-2018-8812