Success for KSB in the proceedings before the European Court of Justice

KSB has been representing Czech Radio in a long running dispute of many years with the Board of the Financial Directorate on the issue of the right to deduct VAT. An important point of contention was whether license fees are in fact a payment for public service broadcasting. Now KSB has achieved another success in the case. The European Court of Justice (ECJ), on the initiative of the Supreme Administrative Court, expressed the view in its decision that license fees are not deemed to be consideration paid for public broadcasting, and therefore fall outside the scope of the directive on VAT.

The ECJ did not agree with the arguments of the Czech government, according to which Czech Radio is in a "triangular legal relationship" between the Czech state which instructs Czech Radio to perform tasks in the public interest consisting in the provision of public service broadcasting, and recipients of services, to whose expense the Czech state prescribes the mandatory fee set by law. According to the ECJ, even in the case that such tripartite legal relationship is given, there is no direct link between the public broadcasting service of Czech Radio, and this fee.

According to the ECJ decision, which will now be mandatory for Czech courts, such simply stated revenue from the license fees are not included in the coefficient for reducing VAT deduction.

Success for KSB in the proceedings before the European Court of Justice

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