Prague, Dec 2 (CTK) – The owners of Paralelni Polis, a Prague cafe with the ambition to fight state authoritarianism, have decided to disrespect the new law on compulsory e-registration of sales because it goes counter to their favourite idea of state decentralisation, daily Pravo writes Friday.
The first phase of the law, one of the government steps to fight grey economy, came into force on December 1, applying to hotels, cafes and restaurants.
The government expects it to reduce tax evasion and contribute to equal conditions for businesses.
In the past months, the planned law caused uproar among tradespeople and the right-wing opposition criticised it as a bureaucratic burden unfriendly to businesses.
The owners of Paralelni polis (parallel polis) are part of the Ztohoven artistic group that is known for staging controversial events to challenge state authorities, Pravo writes.
“Paralelni Polis has not and will never accept the EET rules,” its owners have declared in writing, arguing that EET is a real instrument of a centralised control of citizens by the state, the daily writes.
Paralelni polis must expect sanctions for breaching the new law, which qualifies a deliberate thwarting of electronic registration of sales as a misdemeanour fined with up to half million crowns or even punished with the suspension of the business involved.
“We expect this [boycott] to have consequences for us. However, if Paralelni polis failed to stand up against this aggression of the state, it would completely deny the idea of our project,” the Paralelni polis project’s coordinator Martin Sip is quoted as saying.
He said the project aims to warn of the state’s authoritarian tendencies, mainly by acquainting people with technologies that facilitate decentralisation.
These technologies make people more free and independent from the state, which tends to take back the freedoms people previously gained in the areas of economy, communication as well as privacy, Sip said.
That is also why Paralelni polis does not use the Czech crown but bitcoin, the virtual currency corresponding to the idea of decentralisation, he said.
($1=25.465 crowns)
