Withholding tax is one of the essential elements of the international tax system, which aims to ensure that countries have the right to tax income earned on their territory by foreign entities. In the context of increasing globalization and dynamic capital flows between national borders, the issue of identifying entities entitled to use preferential tax rates is becoming increasingly complex and important. The key concept in this discussion is the so-called “beneficial owner”, i.e. the actual owner of the income.
The concept of beneficial owner is fundamental in the context of applying double taxation treaties. These treaties often provide for reduced withholding tax rates or exemptions from withholding tax for specific categories of income, such as dividends, interest or royalties. However, in order to benefit from these preferences, the recipient of the income must meet the criterion of beneficial owner of the income. In practice, this means that it is not enough to have a formal right to receive the income; a number of other requirements must also be met.
Lack of facilities in Poland and deduction of VAT – views of Polish tax authorities
There are a number of companies being established in Poland with foreign shareholding structure. In this respect, the conditions that must be met by entities in order to be able to develop their business are important. This is particularly important in the context of the company’s background and the deduction of VAT, in accordance with the applicable Act on the tax on goods and services. In Poland, more and more judgments of the Supreme Administrative Court are being issued, which indicate the need to have an appropriate background in a given company.
For effective protection of foreign creditors in Polish jurisdiction, our law firm combines the experience of:
1/ the practices of lawyers and litigators who can predict the effects of M&A as a tool for the attempt to remove assets in the face of possible enforcement;
2/ OSINT analysts and private investigators who, using various methods of analyzing metadata, are able to track crypto transactions and information traffic in the Internet, also from the level of DEEP and DARK WEB, and are able to track the real value of the assets of the Polish company.
In the face of a dynamically evolving global business landscape, the European Union is entering a new stage of reforms, moving towards a more sustainable and ethical model of economic development. The planned Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDD) is an important legal act that will introduce the foundations for a new paradigm of business responsibility. On 24 April 2024, the European Parliament adopted the CSDDD compromise proposal in a plenary vote. The final adoption and announcement of the text of the directive in the wording adopted by the EP and after changes resulting from linguistic and legal verification is planned in the coming weeks.
The announced adoption of the CSDD directive will culminate an approximately four-year process of developing regulations.
Upon the application of Ceneo, the Polish Regional Court in Warsaw banned the Google search engine from favoring its own price comparison website in search results.
The court’s decision applies to the results displayed to users of the Google search engine in Poland. It was issued as security for Ceneo’s claims to refrain from acts of unfair competition before filing a lawsuit against Google.
Ceneo – a comparison website owned by the Allegro Group, the owner of the e-commerce platform – in its application for granting interim security measure (reference number of the case: XXII GWO 24/24) pointed to four types of Google practices that limit their access to the market. The first is favoring one’s own comparison website (Google Shopping) at the expense of competing services (so-called self-preference), done through the way search results are presented. The second – redirecting traffic to Google Shopping at the expense of Ceneo, and the third – hindering access to the Polish comparison website by deleting search results leading to it.
