Excise duty law package – changes from May 1st, 2021

The amended act on excise duty, introducing the so-called excise duty package, was signed by the President of the Republic of Poland on April 8th, and it will partially enter into force at the beginning of May 2021. The new regulations focus on introducing electronic declarations for goods subject to the tax (with particular emphasis on passenger cars), which will help tighten the system and minimize illegal practices by companies through ad hoc administrative control of goods turnover.

The excise duty laws package should be of particular interest to entrepreneurs whose business will be affected by new rules on passenger cars, trucks, and special vehicles with a maximum permissible weight of up to 3.5 tons.

Excise duty law package – details

The new declarations will apply to taxpayers trading excise goods, except for the natural persons (as defined in the law).

Details of the new improvements:

• electronic forms of documentation: declaration, records form;
• improved supervision over the procedure for obtaining and withdrawing excise permits;
• improvements of tax collection in the field of heating fuels (the quality of fuel used to power cars will also be controlled by the Trade Inspection)
• new regulations on tax collection regarding denatured ethyl alcohol (which should curb the incomplete cleaning and sale in the form of alcoholic beverages);
• regulations on marine fuels;
• improvement of the system for registering passenger cars as trucks to avoid the excise duty obligation.

The changes are introduced by the Act of March 30th, 2021, Amending the Act on Excise Duty and Certain Other Acts (Journal of Laws of 2021, item 694).

The entry into force of individual articles of the amendment has been dispersed over time, however, the vast majority of provisions will come into force on May 1st, 2021.

The content of the amendment together with the list of publication dates (Article 39) is available here.