Publication date: February 17, 2025
A consignment agreement is a specific type of civil law agreement, regulated in the Polish Civil Code in articles: 765–773). In the context of the art market, it plays an important role, because it allows transactions to be carried out between the owner of the work and the client through the consignment entity. Particular attention should be paid to the specifics of taxation of these transactions, where a VAT margin invoice is used.
Construction of a consignment agreement
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Publication date: January 23, 2025
The concept of evidence has many meanings. It can mean the course of reasoning that leads to a conviction about the state of affairs, evidentiary proceedings, means of evidence, source of evidence or evidentiary fact. In legal literature, the concept of evidence is variously defined as: a mental act, the purpose of which is to indicate the truth or falsehood of specific statements. Evidence in the strict sense is understood as a means of evidence, i.e. that means that allows one to be convinced of the existence or non-existence of facts, and thus of the truth or falsehood of statements about these facts [1]. The right to evidence also appears in the doctrine, described as: “The right to evidence can be derived from the constitutional right to court. Without evidence, the realization of the right to court would be illusory. The right to evidence should be perceived today not only as the possibility of conducting evidentiary proceedings in order to prove the truth of knowledge of facts already possessed, but also as the right to learn about other existing evidence, the taking of which before the court could enable the party to learn about information unknown to it about facts concerning its right [2]. In turn, the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) in Article 227 states that “the subject of evidence are facts that are of significant importance for resolving the case”. A special type of evidence is evidence from the examination of a witness regulated in the provisions of Articles 258 – 277 of the CPC. This evidence is a special case, because, as a rule, its taking is completely oral, which requires the activity of the judge and the parties during its taking.
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Publication date: January 22, 2025
Temporary admission is, due to its specific purpose, one of the categories of special procedures regulated by Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 October 2013 laying down the Union Customs Code (OJ L 269 of 10.10.2013, as amended, hereinafter referred to as the “UCC”). The temporary custom admission procedure allows for partial or total exemption from customs duties for the transport of non-Union goods intended for re-export. They are also not subject to other duties specified in other regulations and trade policy measures (unless they prohibit the introduction of goods into or exit from the customs territory of the Union). Works of art, in order to qualify for this procedure, must be: imported for a specific purpose; identifiable (except in justified cases) and re-exported within a specific period (this period is set by the relevant customs authority so as to enable the purpose of the import to be achieved).
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Publication date: January 14, 2025
Practical comments on beneficial owner, treaty shopping, beneficial owner clauses for dividends, beneficial owner clauses for interest, substitute companies and abusive clauses, the status of a beneficial owner in various types of intermediary centres between service orderers and service providers, withholding tax on interest paid within the cash pooling structure.
Basic definitions
The look-through approach (also known as LTA) is an issue in international tax law concerning the problem of double taxation, also related to the issue of the so-called withholding tax. It allows for the application of preferential double taxation rates based on a double taxation treaty concluded between Poland and the country of the beneficial owner’s seat, in the scope most often concerning dividends, interest and royalties. However, only an entity with the status of a beneficial owner, is entitled to such privileges.
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