National Fiscal Administration getting closer
From 1 March (and not 1 January, as the Sejm wanted) tax collection and safety of public finances in Poland will be handled by National Fiscal Administration (KAS). Before taxpayers and officials there is a great tax administration reform.
According to the announcement from Marian Banaś, who will stand in charge of the unit from 1 March, KAS will mainly take care of effective collection of liabilities. From now on, big entities will fall under the supervision of National Fiscal Administration. The body will handle the taxpayer’s matters and issue individual tax interpretations.
One of the key goals of the changes is integration of databases with information on taxpayers that will allow for more efficient compliance checks and uncovering of inconsistencies. The MPs who submitted the project argued that the changes are needed to tighten the fiscal system and reduce bureaucracy.
The Ministry of Finances presenting arguments in favour of the tax administration reform pinpoints the faults of the current structure. Today, it consists of tax administration, customs and fiscal control. Each of the institutions is divided into subsidiary bodies. According to the Ministry, the bloated structure causes dispersion and makes it impossible to perform activities consistently and also doubles some entity activities and generates bigger costs.
The consolidated fiscal administration body will consist of 16 fiscal chambers, 400 tax offices and customs and tax offices in the total number of 204. The head of fiscal administration will supervise the tasks performed by the heads of tax offices and customs and tax offices.
The heads of tax offices will take over the competences of the currently functioning heads of tax offices and heads of customs offices. Their tasks will be related to, among other things, collection of taxes, customs duties, fees and non-taxed budgetary receivables (and other receivables arising from separate legal provisions or execution of administration money receivables). They will be responsible for taxpayer service and support as unchangingly it is the tax offices where taxpayers will be able to get help.
In turn, the tasks of the head of the newly created customs and tax office is, among other things, customs and tax inspection, establishing and setting taxes, fees and non-taxes budgetary receivables (and other receivables arising from separate legal provisions) or imposing customs procedures on goods.
As it was announced, the tax administration reform is to comply with the rules of the Business Constitution put forward by the Minister of Development. This means the taxpayers when their cases are being considered, may hope for positive interpretation of regulations and tax officials adhering to the rule of assuming entrepreneur’s honesty. Another rule is to be the rule of proportionality, related to the fact that an official will not be able to impose unreasonable encumbrances on the entrepreneur (e.g. will not be able to request the documents they already are in possession of). However, the main idea of the Business Constitution is the statement: “what is forbidden by law, is allowed.”
