On 18 February 2014, the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution on recommendations to unify effective dates of certain legislative acts. The resolution incorporates into Polish law the legal rule of dual dates, employed inter alia in the United Kingdom and France, whereby the effective date of legislative acts comprising regulations that lay down terms and conditions for conducting business is set either for 1 January or for 1 June.
It is not hard to notice that the arrangement adopted will make the lives of entrepreneurs much easier. The incessant changes in law force additional costs on people running businesses, the sole purpose being to keep abreast of the legislators’ work. Limiting the frequency of the changes will enable them to focus their efforts on the businesses they run. However, entrepreneurs need to bear in mind that the scope of application of the above resolution is limited. It covers solely legislative bills adopted by the Council of Ministers, as well as regulations of the Council of Ministers, regulations of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and regulations of ministers. The other bodies vested with the legislative initiative, such as for example the President or the Senate, while able to apply the recommendations included in the resolution, they are not obligated to do so.
It must be noted that the rule of dual dates is not mandatory. Departures from the rule are allowed if important considerations, in particular protection of life or health, protection of public interest, protection of property of considerable value, protection of material public interest or material interests of the State, make a case for setting another effective date of a legislative act. The list of these is quite extensive and was conceived primarily to help eliminate in a swift manner gaps in law or clearly ill-advised arrangements. However, this does not exclude a possibility that legislators might invoke the list even when the actual application of the above scenarios is doubtful.
In the light of the above, it can be concluded that the changes, beneficial as they may be, should be accepted by entrepreneurs with some caution. As it happens, regulations governing the conduct of business operations will still be able to become effective also on other dates than those set forth under the resolution of the Council of Ministers. Consequently, to avoid surprises, one needs to stay vigilant and closely monitor legislative developments throughout the year.
Also a legislative bill on amending Act on National Court Register and certain other acts, adopted by the Sejm on 26 June 2014, introduces certain simplifications for entrepreneurs. The amendment, whose effective date is on 1 December 2014, seeks to speed up the business start-up procedure and provides for automation of the process of assigning NIP Tax Numbers and REGON Statistical Numbers to entities which are subject to entry in the National Court Register and of filing these numbers with the Register. Under the new regulations, the formalities that must be completed by the above entities to start a business are expected to take in principle up to 7 days. The supplementary data, not subject to filing as part of the registration application, will be submitted by the entrepreneurs to the tax office within 21 days of the date of entry into the National Court Register, which will subsequently transmit the data to the REGON Statistical Register and the ZUS Social Security Institution. Another noteworthy development is the liquidation of the burdensome obligation to file with the tax office a certified copy of the company’s articles of association and a document demonstrating the title to the occupancy of the business premises or the real property where the company’s registered office is located.