New rules of country-by-country (CbC) reporting

 12 March 2019

The President of Poland signed an Act on exchange of tax information with other countries on 20 March 2017. The purpose of the act is to regulate exchange of information in one legal instrument and to introduce regulations allowing automatic exchange of tax-related information with other countries based on the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) procedure.

The act introduces, among other things, an obligation to provide information on group members (in short: “group report”). The obligation applies to every group of entities (in the meaning of the Accounting Act) for which consolidated financial statements are prepared and which consists of:

• at least two entities having their registered office or management board in different countries or territories; or
• an entity having a registered office or management board in one country or territory but pursuing a business activity through a permanent establishment located in a different country or territory,
  if the consolidated revenues of such a group exceeded in the last financial year EUR 750 million.

The new regulations amend the reporting obligation provided for in the laws in force since 1 January 2016 (i.e. in accordance with Article 27(6) of the CIT Act), which so far applied only to a small number of the largest corporations with the holding company located in Poland. Once the new act enters into force, the above provision will be repealed.

Group reporting and notification obligation

The main change which deserves particular attention is the extension of the list of entities obliged to report. Pursuant to the new regulation, the obligation to provide the group report generally rests with the holding company having its registered office/management board in the Republic of Poland, and in specific cases, with a group member not being the holding company which has the registered office/management board in the Republic of Poland or pursues a business activity through a foreign establishment in Poland. For example, the above-mentioned entity may be obliged to provide a group report (unless exempting circumstances occur) if the group's holding company is not obliged to provide a group report for a financial year in the country or territory in which it has the registered office or the management board. Moreover, the domestic entity must notify the Head of the National Tax Administration of its status and indicate the group member responsible for the group reporting, as well as specify the country or territory in which the report will be filed.

Report contents

The group report should contain the identification details of the group members as well as information on the revenues, profit(loss) before tax, income tax paid, income tax due, the share capital, undistributed profits carried forward, headcount, (non-current and current) assets other than cash and cash equivalents, the type of activity pursued by the members of the group (broken down by countries or territories) and additional information or explanations regarding the data disclosed in the group report.

Group reporting and notification deadline

The group report should be filed with the Head of the National Tax Administration within 12 months of the end of the reporting financial year. The first year for which a domestic holding company may be obliged to file a group report is the financial year commencing after 31 December 2015, whereas if the obligation rests with a domestic entity not being a holding company, it is the financial year commencing after 31 December 2016.

Notification of the reporting member of the group should be provided on or before the last day of the reporting financial year of the group.

The act raises some doubts when it comes to determining the EUR 750 million threshold. It may seem that in order to file the notification taxpayers should take into consideration the year preceding the fiscal year. However, for the preparation of a CbC report, in the transitional provisions the act refers to thresholds exceeded for a given reporting period. The act says further that for the purpose of preparing a CbC report for the year commencing after 31 December 2016 relevant is the threshold in that reporting period.

Penalties

If the entities referred to in the act fail to meet their obligations, they will have to face a fine of up to PLN 1,000,000.00.