Andrej Kiska

Kiska was born in Poprad. He studied electrical engineering. His father was an active member of the ruling Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). He also applied for Communist party membership, but was rejected. Kiska is an ethnic Goral.

Kiska moved to the United States in 1990, one year after the Velvet Revolution. He later founded Triangel and Quatro, two Slovakia-based hire-purchase companies that give the buyer the possibility to pay for goods in several installments over a number of months instead of paying the full price at once.

Kiska was married to Mária Kisková, an educator and politician from 1983 until 2001. They had two children, Andrej Kiska (born 1986) and Natália Kisková (born 1991). The couple divorced in 2001 after 18 years of marriage.

In 2003, Kiska married his second wife, Martina Kisková. The couple have three children, a daughter and two sons namely Veronika (born 2004), Viktor (born 2009), and Martin (born July 2017), during his presidency.

In 2006, Kiska co-founded a non-profit charitable organization called Dobrý anjel (translated as Good Angel), in which donors help families that have found themselves in a difficult financial situation as a result of a family member contracting a serious disease, such as cancer). By 2016, more than 170,000 people have donated to this organization in Slovakia. Good Angel expanded their activities also to Czech Republic in 2014, where 60.000 are paying their monthly contributions in 2016.

Tax non-compliance and legal problems

Tax authorities accused his co-owned company KTAG (with his brother Jaroslav) of tax non-compliance and under-payments, regarding expenses for his presidential campaign. The company eventually agreed to pay the taxes and a penalty.

Kiska's companies were involved in a number of tax-non compliance issues. Improperly reported income from various business activities resulted in a smaller VAT and Income tax payments. Process against Kiska and his business partner from KTAG s.r.o. Eduard Kučkovský commenced in June 2023 at District Court in Poprad. He was convicted and sentenced to a two-years of suspended imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros (about $16,300).

In 2024, the fine was cancelled while the prison term was reduced to one following an appeal. The conviction resulted in the cancellation of his pension by the Slovak presidential office. Andrej Kiska responded that the verdict was the result of threats made by Robert Fico. “Fico threatens inconvenient judges with disciplinary proceedings, and fear has spread among the judiciary. I can’t explain today’s decision of the Regional Court any other way”... “I will not stop fighting to clear my name until the truth is revealed, and we are filing an appeal with the Supreme Court.”

In his personal tax filing he did not disclose personal propagation before elections performed by his company as a non-cash income, but claimed that he paid for it. Eventually tax office confirmed he did not pay, did not report non-cash income, and his company did not report income from propagation activities but fully deducted all VAT. Remaining costs additionally decreased tax base.