Let’s face it, it is not really extremely common for the general public (read ‘homo communis, employed and unengaged in business activities) to even notice changes only concerning those self-employed ones. Nevertheless, it happened. Last year. Twice.
Moving backwards, the first topic (except for threats of possible terrorist attacks at Christmas markets) to have stirred the dust on the otherwise calm lives of Czech citizens was the implementation of the Electronic Records of Sales system, so notoriously known as ERS (‘EET’ in Czech). The reasons were many with the introduction of the controversial ‘supergrass’ section on the financial authority website (and its subsequent termination in very unusual circumstances – to find out more about this issue, read our Aktualita) and rather drastic (even 50%) rise in prices in local pubs and restaurants being two major ones. As we are informed by the media, the latter aspect also affected the fact that the first month of the new regime was extraordinarily successful – the recorded sales amounted to CZK 20bn, which is twice as much compared with December 2015.
The specialists at the Ministry of Finance are pondering about the fact and trying to find a plausible unbiased explanation. Let them do so, then, and let us wait for the results; they will, surely, be more exact than those of ours based on incomplete data we have access to. For the time being, we shall have to bear with the finding that the sales, and therefore the state income in the form of tax, rose. For some, however, there is a bit more pressing matter in the form of a second stage of the ERS concerning both retail and wholesale businesses is nearing. In spite of all the opposition politicians’ efforts the ERS seems to be well-rooted in the Czech environment and there is not much of a chance of eradicating it.
