As of 2018, transferring one's business out of Slovakia will become more expensive. As of the new year, new taxes will be imposed on the transfer of a taxpayer's assets, their departure from Slovakia or the transfer of their business activities.
Based on the amended Income Tax Law, which becomes effective as of January 1, 2018, legal persons will have to pay a departure tax.
Tax will be imposed on Slovak companies moving their assets abroad, as well as in cases when foreign companies active in Slovakia move their assets to another country.
"It is always about the physical transfer of assets from Slovakia abroad, although from the legal perspective it is not a sale of assets, since the headquarters and the permanent office moving assets between themselves,are one legal person, and so the person of the assets owner does not change. For tax purposes it is a fictive sale and these assets will be taxed in Slovakia just as if they were being sold," said tax advisor Janka Farkašová from the Deloitte company, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
For instance, if a Slovak company transfers computers to its branch abroad, the tax base would be the difference between the actual value of the computers at the time of the transfer and their price for tax purposes at the time of the transfer, according to Deloitte. This tax base would be taxed by a rate of 21 percent.
