The taxation of monetary payments and non-monetary benefits received by healthcare providers, their employees or a medical staff will be changed in case they are provided by:
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- holder of a medicament registration
- holder of a licence to medicaments wholesale
- holder of a licence to medicaments manufacturing
- producers of medical equipment
- producers of dietary food
- or through the third party
(hereinafter also as “holder“)
As of 2015, the method of taxation will be changed as follows:
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- monetary payments – will be a subject to the withholding tax of the holder who paid them
- non-monetary benefits – will be a subject to the withholding tax of the healthcare provider, his/her employees or a medical worker who received the non-monetary benefits from the holder
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- monetary payments – the holder is also the payer of the tax
- non-monetary benefits – the payer of the tax is the recipient of the non-monetary benefit, while the tax will be withheld till the end of the calendar month following the calendar quarter during which the non-monetary benefit was received. At the same time, the recipient is placed with a duty to notify the tax administrator about the data of withheld tax and other data pursuant to the draft amendment in the form issued by the Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic.
The holder, who pays monetary payments or provides non-monetary benefits, shall notify the tax administrator about these facts till 15 days after the calendar quarter during which the monetary payments were paid or non-monetary benefits were provided and this in the extent proposed by the amendment. The value of the non-monetary benefit shall be set and stated in the announcement by the holder as a price including VAT.
Calculation of non-monetary benefits
We would like to point out that the Act on Income Tax still does not exhaustively regulate the possibilities of calculation of non-monetary benefits, i.e. the holder has to proceed based on the real paid costs. For example for the purpose of calculation of the taxable income in case of mass organized events, the organizer can proceed based on the average assumed consumption, i.e. so-called non-monetary income based on the ratio of planned costs on non-monetary taxable benefits against the planned number of attendees. Thus calculated income can be used for the purpose of calculation of withholding tax regardless of the real consumption of the relevant attendee. The organizer of the event notifies all the attendees of the event about the non-monetary income in advance, for example in form of notification in the invitation.
The organizer of the event calculates the non-monetary benefits provided in connection to the participation in the expert event adequately with regard to the nature and scope of the event. The organizer of the event proves on request of the tax administrator the underlying data, by which he proceeded with the calculation of the amount of the non-monetary income related to the participation of the medical worker in the event and explains the difference between the planned and real non-monetary income of each attendee. The underlying documentation shall take into consideration for example the usual number of attendees on similar events organized in the past, number of expert doctors dealing with the relevant issue in the region where the event took place (for example the number of diabetologists if the event was focused on topics from diabetes-therapeutic area), documentation of the total costs spent on the event organization and its comparison to the provided non-monetary taxable benefits or the demonstration of the planned number of attendees in the invitation (for example via e-mail).
Tax exemptions
Settlements from the holder for the execution of clinical trial by the healthcare provider, his/her employee or a medical worker are not a subject to the withholding tax. These are a subject to the tax within the activities of taxpayers who execute clinical trials and receive income from them.
All settlements provided by the holder to the health care provider, his/her employee or a medical worker directly related to their continuing education pursuant to the Act on healthcare providers, medical professionals and professional chambers are exempted from the taxation (for example payment of the lector, rent of the conference room, equipment etc.) Tax exemption is not applied for settlements of the travel costs, diet and accommodation of doctors or other medicinal workers paid by the holder.
All settlements paid by the holder to the healthcare provider, his/her employee or a medical worker participating in other educational or expert event than the obligatory continuing education under the special regulation, is considered to be a taxable income of the recipient of such settlement.
