What goes on in Poland on the 1st of August.
Opposition party working on motion to start an inquiry committee on VAT
„Our motion to open an inquiry committee on VAT fraud, which took place during the PO-PSL administration will be ready in autumn,” Kukiz’15 opposition party MP Marek Jakubiak told the Polish Press Agency. He stressed that for years billions of Polish zlotys have been transferred illegally out of the state budget, which should not be dismissed.
„We believe that the PO-PSL administration should be held accountable not only politically, but most of all specific officials should be held responsible. The question we are so interested in, especially me as I am an entrepreneur, is what has been going on for so many years and which politician was responsible for turning a blind eye on the hundreds of billions of zlotys transferred out of the budget through carousels, or other tax optimizations,” Jakubiak said.
He stated that the Kukiz’15 MPs were using their holidays to work on a motion to start the inquiry committee. „In autumn we will certainly put the motion to a vote because we cannot let it go. Billions of zlotys have been drained, which caused tax increases,” Jakubiak explained.
Leader of Norway’s Labor Party considers cutting funds for Poland
Leader of Norway’s Labor Party Jonas Gahr Stoere announced that if his party won the September parliamentary elections and Poland will still not abide by Norway’s government terms on the distribution of the so-called Norwegian Funds, the money will be cut off. Stoere, whose party leads the pre-election polls, is concerned about the way Poland is changing its legal system. Norway has halted the financial aid from the Norwegian Funds after it did not agree to allowing an operator chosen by the Polish government to allocate the money.
In his opinion the government’s demand infringes on the fundamental laws of today’s Europe. When answering to Norway’s information agency NBT on the financial help to Poland, the Labor leader said that „Norway cannot afford to donate so much money without sufficient control. We have to state this bluntly to the Polish government.”
He did not exclude that if his party won the upcoming elections, he might want to revise the existing rules for granting financial aid, considering the situation in Poland. He added he wanted to cooperate with the EU on this.
Norway has halted financial aid from Norwegian Funds after it did not agree to allowing an operator chosen by the Polish government to allocate the money. As part of the aid from Norwegian Funds, Poland is to receive by 2021 as much as NOK 7.5 billion, which is almost PLN 3.5 billion.
EU: New regulations on tax information exchange between states
The new Act on tax information exchange between states entered into force. It determines the rules and mode of exchanging tax information with other states, the duties of financial institutions in relation to automatic exchange of tax information and the way the duties will be supervised.
The Act was adopted on 9 March 2017 (Journal of laws from 2017, item 648). It stipulates that tax information may be released to competent authorities provided that the usage of the released tax information will take place in accordance with the rules included in the agreements.
As of 2018 cash registers to start going out of use
In an answer to a parliamentary interpellation, Paweł Gruzy Vice-Minister of Finances stated that as of January 2018, cash registers with paper receipts will be gradually withdrawn, while on-line registers will be obligatory for sectors that are especially at risk of tax fraud.
The interpellation was made by Izabela Leszczyna, an MP from the main opposition party – PO. Gruza informed that the regulation, which is currently being processed, was authored by the Ministry of Economic Development and it determines the requirements for the so-called on-line cash registers. One of the goals is to report the transactions conducted on those appliances to the Ministry of Finance’s central IT system.
„In accordance with the regulation in question, the on-line cash registers will automatically send data on daily fiscal reports, fiscal receipts, cancelled fiscal receipts, as well as invoices and cancelled invoices registered from the time the previous data feed took place and in accordance with an agreed data feed schedule (…) The registers will use a default data feed and will make attempts at subsequent feeds not less frequently than every two hours,” the Vice-Minister explained.
