Limited partnerships and the report on payment deadlines in commercial transactions

​Karolina Sieraczek

20 January 2021

The first report on payment deadlines used in commercial transactions in 2020 should be filed by 31 January 2021 in accordance with the Act on Counteracting Excessive Payment Delays in Commercial Transactions. The Ministry of Development, labour and Technology has announced today that real property companies have to file the first report on their payment deadlines for 2021, that is, no sooner than in January 2022.

Where to start

Details of entities which have earned more than 50 million euro in revenues and of members of tax-consolidated group may be checked at: https://www.gov.pl/web/finanse/2019-indywidualne-dane-podatnikow-CIT. We recommend checking if your company or company members, including limited partnership’s partners who are liable to CIT, are listed there.

Please remember that revenues or membership in a tax-consolidated group are not the only criteria that make the reporting mandatory. You should also check if the details in that database are up-to-date. 

Do limited partnerships have to file the report

Until 1 January 2021, taxable persons for CIT purposes in a limited partnership were the partners and not the partnership itself. Although those partnerships functioned on the market and made transactions, they did not fit the definition of a “taxable person” in 2019 and 2020.
A limited partnership with a lot of partners may earn more than 50 million euro in revenues. However, once we split the revenues among the partners, none of them is obliged to file the report – assuming that they are taxable persons in 2019 and 2020.

Are we dealing with a regulatory gap here? Does this mean that the report should be filed by limited partnerships or by their partners only? Moreover, we could ask if the partners should file the report for the limited partnership, that is, disclose the details of the limited partnership.
This will not be an issue in the years to come because limited partnerships have become taxable persons in 2021 and it is their revenues which will be considered for the reporting purposes.

Foreign entities

Please remember that also foreign businesses which are liable to income tax in Poland must check if they have to fulfil the above-mentioned reporting obligation. The Act on Counteracting Excessive Payment Delays in Commercial Transactions applies to them as well. In their case, the reporting may be even more problematic than for Polish companies.