Since the new year, the revised legislation has come into force Tax Ordinance on the transmission of information on tax schemes (so-called MDRs). The rules are heavily "holed" and endangering tax advisers, as well as tax authorities, against complaints from displeased taxpayers.
Tax advisers since the beginning of the curiosistic idea of releasing them from professional secrecy, strongly protest against this solution. The industry rightly notes that they are contrary to the Tax Advisory Act, which categorically prohibits the breach of client confidentiality, which is also subject to criminal sanctions.
New entries Tax Ordinance, the obligation to report is also inaccurate. "The legislator, when proposing in MDR legislation the possibility of exempting advisors from professional secrecy, did not regulate a number of issues that should naturally be consistently clarified," the CoR notes.
For example, doubts arise as to how much the tax advisor is obliged to ask the customer for information enabling proper and complete reporting, how far this verification should be taken and whether it can, and in what cases, be based on the statements of the contractors (if so, in what form they should be presented and documented).
It is also unclear whether and in what way the advisor agrees on the content of his report with the client and in which cases the liability of the advisor for any incorrect information in the report that was there without his fault is excluded."
Reporting without the client's knowledge, and thus de facto reporting on him, gives him no chance to provide comprehensive information that he knows best. Without this comprehensive knowledge, the conduct of tax authorities may be detrimental to the taxpayer and may expose the office and tax advisor to the investigation processes. Instead of saving money for fighting tax fraud, the government will have additional costs for bringing in cases.
Author:
Katarzyna Kołbuś - Editor leading RB Magazine. From Over 10 years related to industry press, including the Financial Gazette and portal ipip.com.pl, which is devoted to finance, taxation, law, politics and the economy. She graduated from Polish philology at the UMCS and the language editing of the text at the University of Warsaw.