The most important points of the Draft in the area of taxes are presented below:
- The extension of the timeframes for the tax authority to issue individual tax rulings: currently is it 3 months and it is to be extended to 6 or even 9 months.
- For the duration of the epidemic, tax and customs audits and tax proceedings may be suspended at the discretion of the tax authorities or the Ministry of Finance. Taxpayers may also apply for suspension of tax audits.
- The Council of Ministers is entitled to issue a regulation to suspend administrative enforcement of monetary claims for the period of the epidemic.
- Entrepreneurs who successfully applied during the epidemic, or within 30 days from the end date of the epidemic, for deferral or distribution of their tax or social insurance liabilities into installments are to be relieved from paying a prolongation fee (50% of penalty interest)
- Based on the draft legislation, the date of entry into force of retail tax is to be postponed from 1 July 2020 to 1 January 2021.
- Municipal councils may adopt a resolution to exempt certain groups of property owners from real estate tax on land, buildings and structures related to business operations. Municipal tax authorities may also extend the deadlines for payment of real estate tax installments, which are due in April, May and June 2020, however for a period not exceeding 30 September 2020.
- Borrowers who are entrepreneurs are to be exempt from Civil Law Activity Tax due on loan agreements concluded before 31 August 2020.
- The so called “minimum tax” paid on a monthly basis for the months of March, April and May 2020 on initial value of commercial real estate subject to rent, lease or other similar contract is to be extended until 20 July 2020. The extension of the minimum tax payment deadline applies in principle only to those entities whose revenues are obtained in the above-mentioned months of 2020 and are at least 50% lower than revenues obtained in the corresponding months of the previous tax year.
- The Draft introduces a deferment of the deadline for the transfer of PIT advances on income from wages and civil law contracts collected by employers/remitters in March (with a payment deadline of 20 April 2020) and April (with a payment deadline of 20 May 2020) until 1 June 2020.
- The draft legislation introduces the possibility of resigning from the simplified method of payment of income tax advances calculated as 1/12 of the income tax reported in previous year from March to the end of 2020 or until the end of the taxpayer's tax year, as long as it falls within 2020. This solution is available only for SME-classified taxpayers.
- Debtors whose revenues obtained in 2020 are at least 50% lower than revenues obtained in the same period of the previous tax year are to be relived in 2020 from increasing their taxable income subject to CIT/PIT advances by the value of "bad debts".
- The Draft introduces the possibility of settling loss incurred in 2020 up to the amount of PLN 5 million with the income achieved for the previous tax year. This back loss settlement method is to be available to taxpayers whose revenues achieved in 2020 are at least 50% lower than revenues obtained in 2019.
- Taxpayers funding donations to entities performing medical activity consisting of the provision of health care, including sanitary transport, as well as transferred to the Material Reserves Agency and the Central Sanitary and Anti-Epidemic Reserve Base will be able to deduct the full amount of the donation from taxable income in 2020.
- The Draft provides for exemption of warranty support, subsidies to loans granted on the basis of the considered legislation and interest rate subsidies for loans granted under this law from income tax in 2020.
- Contrary to business expectations, the postponement of the deadline to submit a CIT-8 tax return and CIT payment for 2019 until 31 July 2020 will cover only tax-exempt entities. Additional it will cover taxpayers operating in the NGO sector, but only if their revenues from this activity constitute at least 80% of all revenues.
- The Draft postpones some other compliance obligations such as: transfer pricing TP-R reporting deadline until 30 September 2020; implementing a deadline for new SAFT for VAT structure and the date of entry into force of regulations regarding binding rate information (WIS) for VAT purposes until 1 July 2020; the Central Register of Real Beneficiary (CRBR) reporting until 13 July 2020; the draft legislation provides for the suspension, from 31 March to 30 June 2020, of MDR reporting with respect to a tax schemes, except for cross-border tax schemes.
- We are also aware of some Social Security relief for Micro self-employed individuals who are losing their revenues due to the coronavirus epidemic. The Polish government is working on a suspension of social security for this group of entrepreneurs for March, April and May 2020.
Please note that these amendments are still in a draft form and may change at a later stage of legislative work.