Poland’s Finance Ministry has clarified that taxpayers submitting statements for preferential tax treatment with a spouse or as a single parent generally do not need to resubmit annually.
Employer Tax Statement Explained
The issue concerns the statement for preferential tax relief submitted to the employer to reduce monthly income tax advances during the year.
Frequency of Statement Submission
The question arose regarding how often such a statement needs to be submitted. Article 31a, paragraph 6 of the Polish Personal Income Tax Act (PIT) states that a statement and application affecting the advance calculation also apply to subsequent tax years, unless a separate provision states otherwise.
Relevant Articles of the PIT Act
Article 32, paragraph 3 of the PIT Act stipulates that if a taxpayer submits a statement to the payer indicating an intention to tax income in accordance with Article 6, paragraphs 2 or 4d of the Act, and the declared income for the tax year:
Does not exceed 120,000 PLN, and the spouse or child has no income combined with the taxpayer’s income – advances for all months of the tax year amount to 12% of the income earned in a given month from that payer, and are further reduced by 1/12 of the tax-reducing amount.
Ministry of Finance’s Clarification
The Ministry of Finance explained that all statements and applications are, as a rule, multi-year. The Ministry clarified that Article 32, paragraph 3 of the PIT Act is not a separate provision as referred to in Article 31a, paragraph 6. Consequently, a statement of intent for preferential taxation of income with a spouse or as a single parent, submitted by the taxpayer to the payer for a given tax year, also applies to subsequent tax years, unless the circumstances stated in the statement have changed.
The Ministry added that this matter was definitively settled in the tax explanations of December 30, 2022, regarding statements and applications affecting the amount of income tax advances calculated by payers (available at [https://www.gov.pl/web/finanse/objasnienia-podatkowe-z-30-grudnia-2022-r-dot-oswiadczen-i-wnioskow-majacych-wplyw-na-wysokosc-zaliczek-na-podatek-dochodowy-od-osob-fizycznych-obliczanych-przez-platnikow-tego-podatku]). Page seven of the explanations explicitly states that the PIT Act currently contains no exception to the rule that submitted statements and applications also apply to subsequent tax years.