In the judgment of 11 March 2020, case ref. I SA/Wr 977/19, the Provincial Administrative Court in Wrocław revoked the contested interpretation and referred to the verification of the beneficial owner in the situation of using the exemption from withholding tax on dividends paid to a shareholder in accordance with Article 22.4 of the Corporate Income Tax Act.
The Court held that the conditions entitling to take advantage of the said exemption were set forth only in Art. 22 Section 4 of the CIT Act, so if the taxpayer complied with the requirements contained therein, he may take advantage of this preference. It is not obliged to fulfil any other conditions. Thus, the remitter paying out the dividend does not have to verify whether the entity which receives it is its real owner. This circumstance is not a condition for the application of the exemption in question, but it does affect the possibility for the remitter to apply the exemption in question directly, where the remitter has knowledge of the inability to make the required declarations referred to in Article 28b(4)(b) point 4 to 6 of the CIT Act.