The head of the tax office received a conditional sentence for helping acquaintances with tax fraud

This is part of the original case, which was based on fraud related to tax deductions. The case has already been returned twice to the regional court by the High Court in Olomouc. Cuba denied the guilt, the decision is not final, the parties kept a deadline for a possible appeal.

The five people, according to the indictment, falsified beef hide deals to lure in excessive tax deductions. According to the prosecutor, their actions had the characteristics of carousel fraud. Kuba, as a senior tax official, helped the group pass inspections and instructed its members on how to proceed, according to the indictment. According to the indictment, he accepted money and various counter-services for this.

Together with Kuba, the court had to deal with the case of Zdenek Mrni and Milan Kuna, who are accused of bribery. Cuba has previously repeatedly denied guilt. He stated that he and Zdenek Mrňa have been friends for many years and that the money and various services he received from Mrňa or his companies were repayments of an earlier loan he had given Mrňa and his wife.

The public prosecutor also blamed him for advising Mrňa on how to proceed when his company was inspected by the tax office. Kuba stated that it was only friendly advice and that he himself had no influence on the financial control.

The case has been dragging on for eleven years

On Wednesday, the court sentenced Kuba to three years in prison, suspended for five years, under the supervision of a probation officer. Also a fine of 700 thousand crowns and a ban on working in the state administration as an official for ten years. The court again sentenced Mrň and Kun to 7.5 years in prison, as well as fines of 300,000 crowns. In addition, the court banned Mrň from working in statutory bodies for six years.

“Based on the evidence that was supplemented, the court came to the conclusion that the defects pointed out by the appeals court have been removed,” said the president of the senate, Jaroslava Bartošová. Among other things, the court recalculated how much Cuba earned by accepting bribes, the new amount is 623 thousand crowns.

Wednesday’s verdict is the third in a row. In 2021, the regional court sentenced Kuba to a three-year sentence with a five-year suspension and imposed a fine of half a million crowns and a seven-year ban on his work. Both Mrňa and Kuna received unconditional sentences. A year and a half later, the High Court returned the case in the bribery part.

The regional court subsequently ruled on the matter last June, re-imposing a three-year sentence with a five-year suspension on Kuba, 7.5 years in prison on Mrň and Kun, and all of them were also fined. This judgment was overturned by the High Court last December.

The case was uncovered in 2013 by the National Center against Organized Crime. It was accompanied by long delays, the indictment was filed with the Brno Regional Court in 2017, but the regional court did not deliver the verdict until four years later.