From Judicature - the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic commented in its decision No.9 Afs 93/2008-43, dated 23 April 2009, on the term “lease of non-residential premises for the gaming machines” for VAT purposes11/09/09 / cata_tax-news
Pursuant to the Supreme Administrative Court's (SAC) interpretation, since the definition of the term in question is not included in the VAT Act, it is necessary to take into consideration the European Court of Justice’s interpretation pursuant to European legislation. Therefore, in order to make a lease of non-residential premises exempt from VAT, merely meeting the formal requirements of a Lease Agreement under the general civil law rules is not sufficient; the term “lease” and its exemption from VAT needs to be interpreted in a restrictive manner.
The requirements of a lease must genuinely be fulfilled and only then it is possible to exempt the lease from VAT. In the same decision, the SAC expressed its opinion on the interpretation of so-called related performance (principal and collateral performance), which shall not be artificially divided for VAT purposes. Provided that it forms a single unit from the economic point of view, it is considered to be only one performance for VAT purposes. The above mentioned decision is available on the SAC’s website (www.nssoud.cz).