Companies will have to disclose information on their income

The government plans to introduce new regulations imposing additional reporting obligation on Polish companies. The upcoming amendments are connected with the provisions of corporate income tax and most probably will affect, at least initially, the biggest Polish companies (in terms of accrued revenue) as well as capital groups. Officials point to the examples of Denmark and Sweden as inspiration for the new law, as well as OECD guidelines for international companies. Lawmakers want the biggest corporate income tax payers to become more transparent about their fiscal policies.

The companies that will be subject to the new regulation will have to disclose information that is found in tax returns:  their revenue, expenditure, income, loss, tax basis, corporate income tax (CIT) they settle as well as the effective tax rate. Information allowing to identify the taxpayer will be public as well. In order to enable this, the Ministry of Finance will have to waive some provisions on fiscal secrecy. Officials want the information to be available to anyone to put companies under social pressure. The data is to be updated annually. Most probably, entrepreneurs in Poland will not be pleased about this.

Government officials hope that making fiscal information public will make the biggest enterprises in Poland back out from aggressive tax optimisation. This is how large entities gain advantage over smaller companies. In the view of the officials, such advantage is unjustifiable. Politicians thinks new provisions will have positive impact on corporate responsibility and impose social control over the entities in question. The new law will affect approximately 1 percent of all CIT tax payers in Poland, which translates into over four thousand companies.

The new regulation is currently in the consultations phase. Amendments to the corporate income tax act introducing the new obligations are planned to come into effect on 1 January 2018.