In today's legal and tax space, entrepreneurs with a great deal of concern listen to further ideas of politicians, assessing the extent to which their proposed changes will affect and how to avoid them. It is not surprising, then, that the words of the vice minister of finance Philip the Dawn were followed. For the entrepreneurs were to wait for something they thought they had left behind in school times. They will have to pass through the "entrepreneur test".
It's all started 26 March. The participants of the tax workshops at the Łazarski University in Warsaw did not expect to witness a lecture on the flaw of the Polish tax system. one of them, according to the Deputy Minister, is taxation of single-member companies. Exactly, it's about action around 160,000 single-member companies, according to the calculations of the Ministry of Finance, whose activities in many cases are based on fiction.
It seemed that entrepreneurs would be able to relax. Meanwhile, according to the old teaching practice, the Ministry of Finance announced first that the test was cancelled to then run it on unexpected entrepreneurs
Developing the thoughts of the Deputy Minister - this is about so-called "false self-employment". Self-employed but working for one companies exhibiting them one an invoice per month and, moreover, often prohibited from working for other counterparties.
Thus, they differ from employees by issuing invoices (employers?) to their (employers?) and otherwise accounting for the tax office and ZUS, for example, using the benefits of 19% a linear tax.
The proposed concept to address this problem is the "entrepreneur test" mentioned to separate "real entrepreneurs" from those second, „false entrepreneurs’.
This caused obvious anxiety. Will the proposed regulations really affect the situation on the Polish labour market? Finally, it is not easy to separate self-employed workers from employees.
Will there not be artificially created regulations that have little impact on the "problem" scale but that produce further responsibilities and difficulties for entrepreneurs? Or will these regulations have only a financial objective to offset the increase in social welfare expenditure?
Similar concerns arise among the experts of the Citizens' Development Forum, and Jadwiga Emilewicz, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology, speaks skeptically of the idea: “Our view is a risky solution. The liner tax is one of those that Polish medium and small entrepreneurs value very much. This is an important development spur”
The seeds of panic were therefore sown. However, it seems that entrepreneurs can be calm on a temporary basis, while the "entrepreneur test" itself remains in the sphere of distant plans. Position of the Ministry of Finance 30 March 2019 explained that the question of the "trader test" was discussed during standard tax analyses.
However, there is no decision to start work. There is also no draft or planned timetable. The words of Deputy Minister Filip Dawn, who so warmed the awareness of entrepreneurs, were something of a future wish than announcements of reforms.
However, whether it was only intentionally released a "split" to examine the opinion for and against whether the verbalization of the vice minister's dreams was difficult to say.
However, it is worth noting that the arguments of experts present during the workshops, that there are bigger problems in the Polish tax system, did not meet with a broader comment from the ministerial side. The Deputy Minister only signed that the ministry could not accept the existence of a privileged group of taxpayers.
„A privileged group of taxpayers" is rather different on the subject. Sharing into “real” and “false” is not new rhetoric. It's always a strong emotion, especially when it comes to the wrong side of division. It cannot be denied that many people actually bend tax laws to make greater profits at the expense of the tax, but care must be taken not to fire a baby with a bath in their fight. In the end, the Polish tax system has no major problem than the potential "irregularly taxed workers".
It seemed that entrepreneurs would be able to relax. Meanwhile, according to the old teaching practice, the Ministry of Finance announced first that the test was cancelled to then run it on unexpected entrepreneurs. Although only in the form of simulation without consequences, it is not known what other surprises await entrepreneurs.
Source: https://www.forbes.pl/opinie/czy-test-przedsiebiorcy-jest-grozny-dla-samozatrudnionych/pd40h5b
Author:
Andrzej Dmowski
Lawyer and Doctor of Legal Sciences of the University of Warsaw. From 2011 one from Managing Partners in Russell Bedford Poland. Previously on the BDO advisory network, as well as Deloitte & Touche. Author of the book “Transfer Prices”, co-author of the commentary “The Corporate Income Tax Act”, author of many publications on tax law.