Newsletters

24 June 2019 The Government Legislation Centre has published a draft law amending the VAT Directive and the Fiscal Penal Code. The aim of the project is to implement EU regulations in the area of quick fixes. However, the project has not yet been referred to the Sejm and has been stalled at the level of the Committee for European Affairs. This may seem a puzzle, as the purpose of the project is to seal the VAT regulations across the entire EU.

On 13 October 2019, as a result of the entry into force of provisions of the Act of 1 March 2018 on countering money laundering and terrorist financing, uniform text of 16 May 2019 (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1115, as amended, hereinafter referred to as “the Act”), which we discussed in the article Central Register of Ultimate Beneficial Owners, i.e. Transparency Above All, the CRUBO became operational, being a system for collecting and processing the information on ultimate beneficial owners, i.e. natural persons who either directly or indirectly control a company. The establishment of the Central Register of Ultimate Beneficial Owners is going to materially affect the operation of many businesses.

Explanations regarding how to file and what to include in a declaration on preparing local transfer pricing report has been published on the Ministry of Finance’s website. The information concerns declarations submitted under the new laws applicable from 1 January 2019 if they are applied to transfer pricing reports covering 2018 (link). This newsletter offers a detailed explanation of that issue.

The Ministry of Finance has published a draft act introducing an obligatory split payment mechanism for certain goods and services. New regulations are supposed to enter into force already as of 1 September 2019. The draft act has been adopted by the Council of Ministers and sent to Sejm.

On 12 April, amended VAT, CIT and PIT acts were passed. As of 1 January 2020, more stringent provisions concerning payments for transactions exceeding PLN 15,000 will be in force. Any failure to meet statutory conditions will result in joint and several liability of the purchaser for the vendor’s VAT accounting and denied right to recognise this expenditure as tax deductible. Under the new regulations, foreign entities regitered for VAT purposes in Poland will have to open bank accounts in Poland. New regulations are going to cover limited companies, partnerships and sole proprietorships.

The Regulation of the Minister of Finance of 19 September 2018 on declarations of the transport of goods (Journal of Laws, item 1849) has introduced an obligation for consignees and consignors to authenticate the user registered in the Electronic Services Platform of the Customs Service (hereinafter: PUESC) by also providing the entity’s SISC ID, in addition to the login and password, i.e. a 17-digit identification number. This change results from the provisions of Article 9 paragraph 7 of the Act of 9 March 2017 on the Monitoring System for the Road and Rail Transport of Goods (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 2332).

The amended Act on Corporate Income Tax introduces a new mechanism for collecting withholding tax, as set forth in Article 26 paragraph 2e of the Act on Corporate Income Tax (i.e. Journal of Laws of 2018, item 1036, hereinafter: the CIT Act).

The efforts to make the collection of the value-added tax more effective are an evident tendency in all of the European Union, including Germany. The tax administrations perceive goods coming from outside Europe, mainly from Asian markets, to be a serious problem at present. These vendors often do not pay taxes, which significantly distorts the competition and, what is more, it depletes the budgets of EU countries.

On 1 January 2019, an extensive amendment of the Corporate Income Tax Act (hereinafter referred to as the CIT Act) will enter into force, thus introducing very significant, not to say groundbreaking, rules and principles of collecting the withholding CIT. Reduced rates or exemptions from CIT shall continue to apply to the payment of dividends, interest, royalties and fees for certain services; however, there is a number of new formal requirements to be met.