Legal principles of decisions stated by the Court, approved by the Plenary of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic at the session on September 25, 2025

01.10.2025
News and press releases

The Supreme Administrative Court publishes the legal principles of case law approved for publication in the Collection of Opinions and Decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic at the plenary session on September 25, 2025.

  1. keywords: non-recognition of the right to deduct VAT; declaration of supply of consulting services; taxable entity as a participant in a public tender

    If the subject of the invoiced performance is a type of service that is provided continuously, over a longer period, and the individual acts are not (necessarily) a tangible product, or output captured on a material substrate, the taxable entity must in such a case obtain the widest possible range of evidence proving the reality of the performance (including evidence that reliably captures in particular the form of provision of such services (personal or electronic), and the related presence of persons participating in the provision of that performance or relevant communication associated with the negotiation of individual acts of performance), in order to avoid a negative consequence associated with a lack of evidence in the event of a future tax audit in relation to the eligibility of VAT deduction from such a provided service.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 2 Sfk 27/2023 of 21 February 2025: President of the Panel JUDr. Marián Trenčan (Judge-rapporteur), members of the Panel JUDr. Elena Berthotyová, PhD. and Prof. JUDr. Juraj Vačok, PhD.]

  2. keywords: inefficiency; non-contact; declared goods; material conditions for VAT exemption

    Inefficiency and non-contact of companies at the beginning and end of the trade chain with declared goods, outside the relationship of a supplier with a customer from another EU Member State, is not a circumstance that in itself is capable of raising reasonable doubts on the part of the tax administrator about the proof of compliance with the material conditions for VAT exemption, especially if the existence of the goods is not disputed.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 2 Sfk 79/2022 of 21 August 2024: President of the Panel JUDr. Marián Trenčan (Judge-rapporteur), members of the Panel JUDr. Elena Berthotyová, PhD. and Prof. JUDr. Juraj Vačok, PhD.]

  3. keywords: VAT identification number of the customer; status of the customer; emergence of the risk of tax fraud
    1. If the complainant relied on the validity of the VAT identification number of the customer resulting from the customer’s registration in the relevant public register, which is, according to the decision-making activity of the CJEU, evidence of the status of the customer as a taxable person or a person identified for tax purposes, the complainant cannot reasonably be required to provide, in addition to the documents required by the provisions of Section 43, paragraph of the VAT Act, further evidence proving the performance of economic activity by the customer at the time of the transactions in the event that the customer’s VAT registration is cancelled.
    2. The fact that the same person acts as both the supplier and the customer of a taxable entity (and without proving his position and relationship to the given business entities and the corresponding liability), provided that there is no other rational justification for such an arrangement of business relations, is one of the suspicious circumstances indicating the commission of tax fraud. At the same time, this fact must arouse reasonable suspicion in a reasonably prudent entrepreneur, especially considering that the artificial insertion of a taxable entity into a business chain without an economic reason may be driven by the efforts of the entities involved to obtain an unjustified tax advantage and to make its detection more difficult. If the taxable entity does not carry out any further investigation regarding the reason for its inclusion in the business chain, or if he does, but this reason would seem insufficient to a reasonably prudent entrepreneur and yet he allows himself to be inserted into this chain as an unnecessary link, this is one of the proofs of his lack of prudence.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 1 Sfk 68/2022 of 30 September 2024: President of the Panel JUDr. Jana Hatalová, PhD., LL.M., members of the Panel JUDr. Katarína Cangárová, PhD., LL.M. (Judge-rapporteur) and JUDr. Marián Fečík]

  4. keywords: VAT neutrality principle; tax deduction; unjustified tax advantage

    The exercise of the right to deduct tax is not in itself an abuse of the right, but the implementation of the principle of tax neutrality. If a taxable person claims input tax, which he has also paid to his supplier, then the neutrality of his tax burden is ensured by the deduction of this input tax. If there has been an unjustified reduction of the taxable person’s tax burden, or if the taxable person has obtained an unjustified tax advantage, and the reason for not granting the right to deduct tax is to be the abuse of the right, it is necessary to analyze the unjustified tax advantage found in detail, focusing on the criteria indicating the abuse of the right and to find, describe and prove the artificial construction of the declared transactions, which led to the acquisition of a specific tax advantage.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 5 Sfk 9/2023 of 30 January 2025: President of the Panel JUDr. Juraj Vališ, LL.M. (Judge-rapporteur), members of the Panel JUDr. Petra Príbelská, PhD. and Mgr. Peter Mach, PhD.]

  5. keywords: tax fraud; business chain; taxable transactions

    Factual circumstances indicating that the taxable entity knew or could have known about the fraud in the previous link of the chain must be individually assessed regarding the specificity of the assessed taxable transactions, their subject matter, volume and other significant circumstances, including the legal, commercial and personal ties between the entities involved. It is also essential to identify why these established factual circumstances do not correspond to normal commercial conditions regarding the nature of the taxable transactions.

    For the purposes of assessing objective factual circumstances indicating that the taxable entity knew or could have known about the fraud in the previous link of the chain, those circumstances that were or could have been known to the taxable entity at the time of the implementation or negotiation of the assessed taxable transactions are essential.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 5 Sfk 93/2022 of 25 September 2024: President of the Panel JUDr. Juraj Vališ, LL.M. (Judge-rapporteur), members of the Panel JUDr. Petra Príbelská, PhD. and Mgr. Peter Mach, PhD.]

  6. keywords: corporate income tax; tax expense; tax base
    1. For the determination of the tax base of a dependent person pursuant to Section 17, paragraph of Act No. 595/2003 on Income Tax, as amended (hereinafter referred to as the “Income Tax Act”) using the independent market price method pursuant to Section 18, paragraph 2, letter a) of the Income Tax Act, the price comparison at the beginning and end of the trade chain shall be in accordance with the conditions laid down in Section 18, paragraph 1 of the Income Tax Act, provided that the suppliers of the taxable person in the controlled transactions did not contribute any added value that justifies a substantial increase in the price for the provision of (advertising) services compared to comparable transactions between independent persons selected by the tax administrator.
    2. The Income Tax Act does not impose an obligation on the tax administrator to proceed in accordance with a specific method laid down in Section 18, paragraph 2 or 3 of this Act, but allows him to choose (or a combination of) the most appropriate method consistent with the arm’s length principle, which is the result of his correct reasoning.
    3. If the tax administrator properly justifies his correct reasoning applied in choosing the method and the tax subject disagrees with the choice, but does not state what other method the tax administrator should have applied, the tax administrator does not have to justify, within the framework of correct reasoning, why he did not test another method.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 4 Sfk 42/2023 of 21 August 2024: President of the Panel JUDr. Elena Berthotyová, PhD. (Judge-rapporteur), members of the Panel JUDr. Marián Trenčan and Prof. JUDr. Juraj Vačok, PhD.]

  7. keywords: subject of withholding tax; sale and purchase of medicines
    1. From a purposeful, systematic and constitutionally consistent interpretation, it follows that the term “monetary consideration and non-monetary consideration that was provided to a healthcare provider, its employee or healthcare professional from the holder” as the subject of withholding tax pursuant to Section 43, paragraph, letter o) of Act No. 595/2003 on Income Tax, as amended from 01.01.2016, must be interpreted in accordance with the substantive understanding of this term pursuant to Act No. 362/2011 on medicines and medical devices and on amendments and supplements to certain acts, as amended (hereinafter referred to as the “Act on Medicines”).
    2. The positive and negative definition of these supplies under the Act on Medicines shows that supplies provided within the framework of normal business relations relating to the sale or purchase of medicines and medical devices are not considered to be such supplies.
    3. In order for business transactions consisting in the sale and purchase of medicines and medical devices between the holder and the healthcare provider to fall under normal business relations, it is required that the terms of the supplies correspond to the terms usual in normal business relations, in particular with regard to price, quantity and other conditions of cooperation.
    4. The tax administrator is obliged to properly establish the facts, examine the nature of the supplies as well as their compliance with normal business conditions and to properly address their evaluation in the justification of the issued decision.

    [judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic, Case No. 1 Sfk 34/2022 of 30 September 2024: President of the Panel JUDr. Jana Hatalová, PhD., LL.M., members of the Panel JUDr. Katarína Cangárová, PhD., LL.M. (Judge-rapporteur) and JUDr. Marián Fečík]