Tax microaccount for each and every taxpayer

Starting on January 1st, 2020, each taxpayer in Poland will have a personal tax account to which they will transfer all amounts due to the tax office. Following last year’s introduction of individual accounts for social insurance contributions, this is another step towards simplifying the method of communication between the taxpayer and the Treasury.

Works on amending the law on VAT are going to result in personal tax accounts for each tax remitter. The new accounts are going to be introduced in Poland on January 1st, 2020. Each tax remitter will receive a unique account number to which they will transfer all their tax liabilities, including the major ones: personal income tax, corporate income tax, and value-added tax.

So far, businesspeople have had to make even several transfers to the tax office per month (depending on the type of their business). If they changed their place of residence or the seat of the business, they would have additional obligations, as they would need to find the account number of the relevant office.

Payments assigned to the taxpayer

Following the new formula, the payer will have to indicate in the transfer description what tax they wish to pay so that it will be easier for the tax office to marshal the transfers according to the tax category. At the moment, if the taxpayer fails to describe their transfer accurately or makes a mistake in the description, the tax office has to search for the relevant information, which has turned out to be time-consuming. Starting next year, with the personal accounts, each transfer will be unambiguously assigned to a particular taxpayer.

Each entrepreneur will be able to find out their account number in their tax office or via the Ministry of Finance’s website after providing their Tax Identification Number (NIP) or their Civil Registration Number (PESEL). The individual number’s structure will comprise:

• checksum,
• sort code of the bank’s unit,
• tax identifier.

The personal tax account, albeit assigned directly to the taxpayer, is going to be used only for payments of liabilities to the Treasury. Excess (surplus) payments will continue to be repaid to private bank accounts.

Moreover, taxpayers should remember that if they are in arrears with a specific type of tax, any new payment may be offset against the outstanding amount. According to the draft law, the tax arrears with the oldest payment deadline will have precedence over other tax arrears.