Lower-house votes to cancel electronic cash register system

The Chamber of Deputies voted on Friday to completely cancel the electronic cash register system, known as EET, at the end of 2022. Under EET, which was introduced in late 2016 when ANO party leader Andrej Babiš was finance minister, retailers, restaurants and other businesses in the Czech Republic must record their takings in real time into a central state electronic register system.

The proposal to end EET was strongly opposed by the opposition ANO party, which is also the largest party currently in the lower house. However, it received support from both the ruling coalition as well as from the opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party.  In the end the bill passed with 92 out of the 142 deputies that were present voting in favour.

The head of the ANO party’s deputies club, Alena Schillerová, argued that EET had helped to make the business environment more equal and brought in much needed money to the state. Meanwhile, ruling coalition representatives said that the system simply added a further burden on entrepreneurs with questionable benefits to the state.

The bill will now also have to pass through the Senate before being signed by the president.