What should tax transparency and
reporting consist of?
On 1 June 2021, the Council of the EU
reached an agreement with the EU Parliament on public reporting by Member
State. The agreement was based on the proposal for a Directive of the European
Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2013/34/EU as regards
disclosure of information on income tax of 13 January 2021(2016/0107(COD)). The
proposal extended its scope to the largest domestic traders, i.e. international
traders or those whose total annual income for the last two financial years
exceeds €750 million, thus obliging them to file tax reports on their
activities. The €750 million is subject to conversion into national currency
for countries that have not adopted the euro as their national currency.
According to the proposal, these entities will be obliged to publish and make
available (also on the Internet) information about the income tax they pay.
Moreover, entrepreneurs will be obliged to submit a reporting report in which
they will publish information such as the company name, type of business
activity, number of full-time employees, the amount of income tax and the
actually accumulated tax, as well as the accumulated income. The list of
required data is specified in detail in Article 48c of the proposal, in order
to establish indisputable and uniform rules for obliged entities. It is
required that the information is exhaustive and not intended to omit material
facts. The entrepreneur is entitled to defer certain information for a period
not exceeding 5 years, however, he must substantiate the reasons for his action
– the motivation may be the desire not to disclose certain information about
his activity for fear of competition.
The foundations of the agreement;
previous regulation of the issue
Amendments introduced by the Polish Senate regarding the entry into force of the National Register of Debtors in December 2021 were supported by the Polish Sejm. Over 30 Senate amendments to the amendment to the Act on the National Register of Debtors (KRZ) were adopted by the Sejm. Most of them were editorial and precise. The amendments postponed the entry into force of the provisions on the Polish National Debt Register – from the beginning of July 2021 to the beginning of December 2021. The amendment will now go to the Polish president. The new regulations also introduce a partial computerization of consumer bankruptcy proceedings.
On the website of the Polish Government Legislation Center there was published a draft act aimed to amend the act on investments in wind farms (“the distance act” or “the 10H Act”). Currently, it is not possible to issue permits for the construction of wind farms at a distance less than ten times the total height of the turbine from residential properties and forms of nature protection. This is a very high risk both for the further development of this sector of electricity producers and for the already operating wind farms.
Slowdown
in the construction of new wind farms in Poland
AML stands for anti-money laundering, and its main task is to protect the financial system from being used for criminal purposes. Currently, the virtual currency market is one of the fastest growing in the world. Unfortunately, they are often used for illegal purposes. To prevent this, on May 15, 2021 an amendment to the AML Act entered into force.
Act of
March 1, 2018 on counteracting money laundering and financing of terrorism –
Polish regulations
On 11 August 2021 the Polish Act of Administrative Procedure Code Amendment was passed by the Polish lower house of the Parliament after the Senate’s adjustment consideration. On 14 August 2021 the Amendment Act was signed by the Polish president and on 16 August 2021 was published in the Polish Official Journal of Laws. As we can read on the official websites and from the official Ministry of Justice statement (from the ministerial conference):
The amendment to the Polish Administrative Procedure Code protects the interests of thousands of Polish citizens who are uncertain about the fate of properties important to them. The provisions passed by the Sejm dismiss the spectre of never-ending claims against the State Treasury.[1]
This statement should be read in the context of the real estate’s reprivatization socio-legal problem, to which politicians have mainly referred. [2]
It
is worth to notice that this amendment implemented Constitutional Tribunal
judgement of 2015 (P 46/13) on the inconsistency with the Polish Constitution of
previous procedural articles and there are a lot of critical voices about
recent amendment, for instance here:
