Previous and current years bloomed in ideas of new taxes targeting certain sectors of the economy. While some of them were put on hold, and some of them had a bumpy road due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they all have one thing in common: they are supposed to enter into force as of 1 January 2021. As such, it is worth summarizing and shedding a little more light on how making them biding law is going. The three new main taxes include:  retail, sugar and plastic tax.

Retail tax

The scope of the new tax levied on retail sales will include retail companies’ revenues that will exceed PLN 17 million / month. Two tax rates are envisaged:

  1. 0.8 % of the tax base (if the base does not exceed PLN 170 million).
  2. 1.4 % taxation of the surplus exceeding PLN 170 million.

The tax was planned to be introduced in 2016. Since 2016, however Poland is a party to a proceeding initiated by the EU Commission claiming that this tax is incompliant with the EU law, and should be considered illegal public aid for smaller entities. The case may have its final outcome shortly as recently, on 15 October, the Attorney General of the CJEU issued an opinion on trade tax, which indicates that retail tax does not violate EU law on state aid. Although, of course, the Attorney General’s  opinion is not binding for the CJEU, rarely it happens that the court takes a different view. It is not sure if Poland will wait for the final verdict or will rather move with tax collection – the project of the the draft state budget for 2021, currently proceeded before the Parliament, assumes PLN 1.5 bln of retail tax revenues. It may therefore be necessary for retailers to set aside some resources to pay the tax as soon as from 1 January 2021.

Sugar tax

Another tax worth taking a closer look at is the so-called sugar tax. The tax is to enter into force as of 1 January 2021, and as in the case of retail tax its entry into force was postponed due to COVID-19. The legal basis for introducing the sugar tax is the Act of 14 February 2020 amending Certain Acts in Connection with the Promotion of Pro-healthy Consumer Choices.

This will hit mainly producers and suppliers of sweetened drinks and certain alcoholic beverages, and will cover products containing sugar (including alcohol up to 300 ml) and active substances. The amounts of the charges will be as follows:

  1. a) For sweetened drinks:
  2. PLN 0.50 for 1l of a beverage which contains sugar or sweeteners in its composition
  3. PLN 0.10 for 1l of a drink that contains an active substance (caffeine or taurine).

Additionally, a variable fee should be added, if the sugar in the product is more than 5 grams/100ml, then for each additional 1 gram of sugar a fee of PLN 0.05 should be added.

Fee exemptions may apply in certain cases

  1. b) For alcoholic beverages up to 300 ml:
  2. PLN 25 for 1l of 100% alcohol sold after processing such as vodka, liqueurs, rum and other alcoholic beverages in packages up to 300 ml.

The wording of the new regulations is very unclear, but the main steps that need to be taken will include discussion if (i) a given drink fulfills the definition and should be subject to tax, (ii) the entity to which the beverages are supplied carries out retail sales within the meaning of the new definition, (iii) the lack of transitional rules and therefore question of would it also apply to beverages produced or supplied prior to 1 January 2021. There is still some time for preparations, moreover one can discuss if applying for a binding ruling should be considered to secure the tax position.

Plastic tax

The last tax expected to be binding as of 1 January 2021 is the tax on unprocessed plastic (so-called “plastic tax”). The tax itself is a result of an EU initiative taken earlier in 2019. Currently, the draft bill containing detailed regulations has not be revealed, but the charge is to be set at the level of 80 euro cents for every kilogram of unrecovered plastic. According to EU forecasts, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland will pay the most, with Poland’s share of over EUR 400 mln a year. It is estimated that in Poland the tax will mainly affect the plastic packaging manufacturers, and food and cosmetics producers