As of 1 January 2019, the Act of 23 October 2018 amending the Personal Income Tax Act, the Corporate Income Tax Act, the Tax Ordinance Act and certain other acts (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 2193) entered into force. A new Chapter 11a – Information on tax schemes – has been added to the Tax Ordinance in Section III.

The transitional provisions regulated the obligations concerning retrospective reporting of information on tax schemes resulting from the need to implement the provisions of Council Directive (EU) 2018/8221 of 25 May 2018 amending Directive 2011/16/EU as regards the mandatory automatic exchange of information in the field of taxation with respect to reportable cross-border arrangements.

In accordance with the transitional provisions (Article 28 of the aforementioned Act), the schemes for which the first action related to the implementation of the schemes was performed should be reported:

  • in the case of national schemes – after 1 November 2018,
  • for cross-border schemes– after 25 June 2018.

As indicated in the tax clarifications of 31 January 2019. (p. 8) the first activity related to the implementation of the tax scheme may take the form of both legal and actual activities. When assessing whether a given activity is part of a previously implemented scheme or should be qualified as a separate scheme, its nature, purpose and effect should be taken into account each time.

For users, the deadline for submitting information on the tax scheme within the scope of retrospective reporting is 30 September 2019 (for promoters it was exported on 30 June 2019).

Pursuant to art. 28 sec. 2 or 4 of the Introductory Act in connection with art. 86b §4 of the Tax Ordinance, the beneficiary submits information about the tax scheme if he has not been informed by the promoter about the assignment of the tax scheme number (NSP) or if the tax scheme has not yet been assigned to the NSP (and the beneficiary has not been informed about this fact in writing) or has been informed about the obligation to provide information about the tax scheme other than the standardized one.

Author: Beata Rawa ? senior tax consultant

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