KPMG Weekly Tax Review 10 MAR - 17 MAR 2025

During the meeting of the Monetary Policy Council held on 11 – 12 March 2025, 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.

The reference rate has influence on other financial parameters, e.g. the amount of interest on tax arrears (200% of the basic lombard loan interest rate + 2%, except that the rate may not be lower than 8%), which continues to amount to 14.5% on an annual basis.

Komunikat prasowy z posiedzenia Rady Polityki Pieniężnej w dniach 11-12 marca 2025 r. | Narodowy Bank Polski - Internetowy Serwis Informacyjny

A notice of the Minister of Finance on publishing the record of countries and territories entered on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, currently being adopted by the European Council, which have not been included in the list of countries and territories applying harmful tax competition issued on the basis of the Polish regulations on personal income tax and regulations on corporate income tax, including the date of adoption of the record by the Council, was published on 8 March 2025.

The Schedule to the notice provides a list of tax havens which have not been included in the list of countries and territories applying harmful tax competition, issued based on PIT and CIT regulations. As in the previous year, the list includes Fiji, Guam, Republic of Palau, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Russian Federation, and American Samoa.

Obwieszczenie Ministra Finansów z dnia 8 marca 2025 r. w sprawie ogłoszenia listy krajów i terytoriów wskazanych w unijnym wykazie jurysdykcji niechętnych współpracy do celów podatkowych przyjmowanym przez Radę Unii Europejskiej, które nie zostały ujęte w wykazie krajów i terytoriów stosujących szkodliwą konkurencję podatkową wydawanym na podstawie przepisów o podatku dochodowym od osób fizycznych oraz przepisów o podatku dochodowym od osób prawnych, oraz dnia przyjęcia tego wykazu przez Radę Unii Europejskiej

On 11 March 2025, the Council of the European Union reached a political agreement on a new EU directive (DAC) that will improve administrative cooperation in the field of taxation.

The directive requires EU Member States to introduce legislation that broadens the scope of information to be reported by platforms to state authorities. The goal of implementing DAC9 is to make it easier for companies to fulfil their filing obligations under the Council Directive (EU) 2022/2523 of 14 December 2022 on ensuring a global minimum level of taxation for multinational enterprise groups and large-scale domestic groups in the Union (Pillar 2 Directive).

The Commission agreed with the Council on the need to ensure that the standard template for reporting set out in Section IV of Annex VII of DAC9 remains closely aligned with the GloBE Information Return (GIR) approved by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and 

Profit Shifting (BEPS). Adoption of the DAC9 package by the Council of the European Union means that EU governments will have time until 31 December 2025 to put it into practice. The same deadline will apply for countries that have chosen to delay implementing the Pillar 2 Directive.

Council agrees to enhance cooperation and information exchange on minimum effective corporate taxation - Consilium

On 11 March 2025, the Council of Ministers passed the First Deregulation Package prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology.

The Package features more than 40 amendments relating to various aspects and different stages of business activity. The main elements of the legislation include, inter alia, new principles for company audits (including reduction in the maximum duration of audits for micro-businesses from 12 to 6 days, or the introduction of an obligation to provide the entity with a preliminary list of information and documents required, prior to the commencement of an audit), improvements in the communication between the administration and business, or transparent rules for developing economic law (including, inter alia, an appropriate six-month vacatio legis for bills imposing obligations on entrepreneurs).

According to the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court dated 11 March 2025 (case file II FSK 1412/24), given the context of the past regulations on lump-sum tax, the interpretation of Article 28j(2)(2) of the CIT Act presented by the tax authority in a tax ruling is of narrowing character, since, according to the authority, it only applies to taxable persons commencing their business activities, excluding taxable persons formed as a result of business re-registration.  In fact, the legislator has not, in any way, made any restrictions on such activities. Consequently, the position that the preferential treatment can also be enjoyed by taxable persons formed through re-registration from sole proprietorship to a business taxed under the CIT Act shall be deemed founded. Consequently, the first year of applying CIT regulations must be treated as the first year of operation and, as a result, as the year of commencing business activity by the entity. 

According to the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court dated 11 March 2025 (case file II FSK 779/22), it cannot be deduced from the PIT Act provisions that it was the legislator's intention that income other than that the one actually received should be taxed. In the aforementioned provisions, the legislator uses the notion of the income actually received. Thus, in every situation it should be examined whether it is possible to establish the nature of the income, in other words, whether it its potential or actual. At the moment the dividend is paid to the French fund (FCPE), and new shares are bought, the income of the program participant cannot be established, meaning that it should be treated as potential. This is supported, inter alia, by the fact that for the first five years, the participants to the program cannot dispose in any way of shares purchased in the FCPE. Only after five years have elapsed does a participant gain the ability to dispose of participation units. As a result, there is no possibility to determine the income/revenue before the lapse of a five-year period. This is also supported by the wording of Article 24(11) of the PIT Act, where it is clearly stated that: “a taxable person actually takes up or acquires shares”. If it were to be considered that taxable income is generated on the part of the incentive plan participant already at the time of the transfer of the dividend to the FCPE and the acquisition of the new shares, it would result in double taxation of the income that the participant obtains from the disposal of the FCPE units in exchange for the shares granted to them in the form of dividends.