Entrepreneurs carry out on a daily basis numerous commercial transactions and payments related to their business activities. Some are made in cash; however, due to legal constraints, the great majority of them must be effected through bank accounts.
According to the current wording of Article 22 of the Freedom of Economic Activity Act of 2 July 2004, economic operators are required to make and receive payments related to their business activity through a bank account whenever another entrepreneur is a party to the transaction giving rise to the payment in question and if the one-off value of the transaction, regardless of the number of payments to be made under that transaction, exceeds the equivalent of EUR 15,000.
It should be noted that these conditions must be fulfilled cumulatively, which means that this rule will not apply, for example, in situations where the value of a payment made to an economic operator is in excess of EUR 15,000, but its beneficiary is a natural person not conducting business activity, or if the transaction is made between two entrepreneurs, yet its value does not exceed the prescribed limit.
The above regulation was amended by the Act of 13 April 2016 amending the income tax act, corporate tax act, and the freedom of business activity act (the “Amending Act”). Pursuant to the amendments adopted, the upper limit of payments that can be made in the form of cash was lowered to PLN 15,000. The value of transactions carried out in foreign currencies is to be converted into Polish zlotys according to the average exchange rate of relevant currencies as published by the National Bank of Poland for the last business day preceding the date on which the transaction is made.
Neither the existing nor the amended text of the Freedom of Business Activity Act provides for any sanctions for failure to comply with the obligations to effect the aforementioned payments through a bank account. However, under the Amending Act, additional provisions intended to discourage economic operators from carrying out cash transactions were introduced into the Individual Income Tax Act of 26 July 1991 and the Corporate Income Tax Act of 15 February 1992. In accordance with Article 15(d), which was included in both Acts, the portion of a transaction for which the related payment did not go through a bank account cannot be claimed as a tax-deductible expense by the taxpayer.
The said amendments are intended to enhance the certainty and transparency of business dealings, while making it more difficult for economic operators to evade their tax obligations. Moreover, the solutions introduced follow the trend in European Union countries to lower the upper thresholds for cash transactions. Similar regulations have already been adopted in France, Portugal, Bulgaria, or Hungary, among others.
The Amending Act will come into force on 1 January 2017. However, the limit of EUR 15,000 will continue to apply to transactions concluded prior to its effective date.