By adopting the amendment to the Value Added Tax Act, the National Council of the Slovak Republic transposed European Council Directive (EU) 2018/1910 amending Directive 2006/11/EC as regards the harmonization and simplification of certain rules in the system of value added tax for the taxation of trade between Member States of European Union.

Thus, trade in goods within the European Union will be easier as from January 1, 2020 thanks to the introduction of the so-called “call-off stock” regime which was previously unknown in the Slovak Value Added Act. In practice, this means that the re-location of goods by a VAT payer to another Member State, for the purposes of its subsequent supply to a beforehand identified customer, will not be considered a supply of goods subject to value added tax if all the conditions laid down by VAT Act are met.

Other changes introduced by the amendment starting from the new year include reduction of the VAT rate to 10% for newspapers, magazines and periodicals where the content of advertising and promotion is less than 50%, or a 10% reduced VAT rate applicable to certain types of food.