As announced, by the end of January, the Ministry of Finance issued explanations concerning reporting of tax schemes.
The tax explanations published yesterday evening (hereinafter: explanations) concern the application of the provisions related to the obligation to provide the Head of the National Tax Administration with information on tax schemes (Mandatory Disclosure Rules hereinafter: MDR provisions).
The provisions in question were introduced into the Polish legal system by 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) and by adding to Section III of the Tax Ordinance, Art. 86a – 86o, i.e. the new Chapter 11a – Information on Tax Schemes.
The final version of the explanations is more than 20 pages longer than the draft explanations and the most important innovation is the introduction of a “protection period” for obliged entities. Possible delays in the implementation of disclosure obligations under the MDR provisions will not have negative consequences for the obliged entities, provided that these obligations are properly fulfilled by 28 February 2019. Moreover, in the case of proper performance of the delayed information obligations in the period from 1 March 2019 to 30 April 2019, these delays will be treated as minor cases.
Another important novelty is the attachment to the explanatory notes containing an enumerative list of groups of activities which, as a rule, will not result in the obligation to report, provided that they do not contain recommendations as to whether the customer should undertake specific factual or legal activities, the result of which is to achieve tax benefits in the future.
It should be recalled that a cross-border tax scheme is subject to reporting if the first operation related to its implementation took place not earlier than after 25 June 2018 and other tax schemes the first operation related to its implementation took place not earlier than after 1 November 2018.
It should also be noted that the Ministry of Finance stipulated that the explanations may be supplemented in the future with the presentation of new issues and comments. The direction of possible changes will be influenced by the analysis of the practice of applying the MDR regulations.