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.
MILLER, CANFIELD,
W. BABICKI, A. CHEŁCHOWSKI I WSPÓLNICY SP.K.
ul. Batorego 28-32
81-366 Gdynia
Tel. +48 58 782-0050
Fax +48 58 782-0060
gdynia@pl.millercanfield.com
ul. Nowogrodzka 11
00-513 Warszawa
Tel. +48 22 447-4300
Fax +48 22 447-4301
warszawa@pl.millercanfield.com
ul. Skarbowców 23a
53-125 Wrocław
Tel. +48 71 780-3100
Fax +48 71 780-3101
wroclaw@pl.millercanfield.com
Disclaimer: This publication has been prepared for clients and professional associates of Miller Canfield. It is intended to provide only a summary
of certain recent legal developments of selected areas of law. For this reason the information contained in this publication should not form the
basis of any decision as to a particular course of action; nor should it be relied on as legal advice or regarded as a substitute for detailed advice in
individual cases. The services of a competent professional adviser should be obtained in each instance so that the applicability of the relevant
legislation or other legal development to the particular facts can be verified.