KPMG Weekly Tax Review 02 APR - 08 APR 2024

On 3 April 2024, the Ministry of Finance announced it had launched a public consultation to gather feedback on draft legal solutions making the use of the National e-Invoicing System (KSeF) mandatory. The consultation process lasts until 19 April 2024.

The amendments proposed include:

• postponement of introduction of mandatory KSeF. The Ministry considered the demands to make it mandatory for all taxable persons (both for active taxpayers and VAT-exempt taxpayers) on a single date;
• introduction of the possibility to issue invoices off-line, according to the structured invoice template, for all taxable persons during the transition period; invoices issued this way must bear a QR code and can be provided by taxable persons to buyers outside KSeF; in addition, such off-line invoices must be uploaded to KSeF by the taxable person the next business day after they are issued. 

According to the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court dated 3 April 2024 in case II FSK 844/21, the mere fact of existence of statute of limitations for the creditor's claim, does not result in permanent asset acquisition by the debtor and thus no taxable income is generated. Pursuant to the Polish Civil Code provisions, following the lapse of the period of limitation, the debtor may avoid the duty to satisfy the claim, which means that the creditor will not enjoy the protection of the State in pursuing the time-barred claim and there will be no possibility to compulsorily satisfy it. In fact, under civil law, a person in time-barred debt is still treated as a debtor, the only difference is that the creditor does not enjoy any legal protection. As a result, a debtor with assets equivalent to a time-barred claim does not dispose of their property. 

During the meeting of the Monetary Policy Council held on 3-4 April 2024, it was decided to keep the NBP interest rates unchanged, i.e.:

• reference rate at 5.75% annually
• lombard loan interest rate at 6.25% annually
• deposit rate at 5.25% annually
• rediscount rate at 5.80% annually
• discount rate on bills of exchange at 5.85% annually.

Changes to the reference rate affect other financial parameters, e.g., the amount of interest on tax arrears. Given that the rates remain unchanged, interest on tax arrears continues to amount to 14.5% on an annual basis.

On 28 March 2024, the Ministry of Finance announced the launch of tax consultation on changes to the templates of the remitter’s and issuer’s statements (WH-EM/OSC/OSP form).

It is planned to:

1. introduce amendments facilitating the use of the form, including technical changes, such as improving the quality of translation
2. introduce technical changes to extend the name of item 18 Seria (“batch”) to Numer Serii (“batch number”) or Numer ISIN (“ISIN number”) to make reporting and data analysis easier.

Comments and opinions, in an editable form, can be submitted to: WHT-Konsultacje@mf.gov.pl until 9 April 2024. 

On 29 March 2024, a bill by the Left deputies amending the Capital Duty Act of 6 September 2000 was submitted before the Lower House of the Polish Parliament. The goal is to introduce additional tax rates for sales of residential premises within a short period of its purchase. The bill has not yet been assigned a number, but it was passed to the Government Legislation Centre and the Office of Expertise and Regulatory Impact Assessment of the Chancellery of the Sejm.

According to the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court dated 2 April 2024 in case I FSK 774/21, for the purposes of corporate income tax, the company must include the gross value of invoices for the services rendered (revenue due) in its taxable revenue and the gross value of invoices documenting the costs incurred (costs incurred) in its tax-deductible costs; otherwise, relevant CIT act regulations on value-added tax will not apply. Importantly, there are no VAT treaties between Poland and Norway, and the treaty between the EU and the Kingdom of Norway cannot be perceived as equivalent to an agreement between Poland and Norway.

According to the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court in Wrocław dated 2 April 2024 in case I SA/Wr 830/23, a taxable person who filed a return using the PIT-36 form, and, at the same time declared that they want to settle their 2022 income according to the tax scale and opt out of the flat-tax scheme cannot do so by filing an adjusted return for 2022 using the PIT-36L form.