In tax law, under the rules of Article 217 of the Constitution, there does not exist even a conception of higher or lower tax. This radicalism has ar-reaching consequences, both when it comes to the obligation of the authorities who create tax law, as well as the obligations of taxpayers themselves and tax agencies.
The most bothersome consequences arising from these regulations fall only on taxpayers. Anyone who divulges a lower payable amount than is due, or who does not divulge at all, permits actions or omission which implicitly have the features of a violation of the law - even if the payment deadline has not yet passed or even if the tax was paid despite being undisclosed.
It is therefore necessary to pay serious attention to the regulations of the act from September 10, 1999, from the Penal and Fiscal Code (Dz. U. Nr 83, item 930, as amended), since despite having paid tax arrears along with interest for the delay, the taxpayer is exposed to their exceptionally restrictive nature.
The basis for determining the amount of the fine, as defined by the Penal and Fiscal Code, is a daily rate. The daily rate does not have a permanently defined value. The Penal and Fiscal Code determines the maximum foreseen daily rate in Article 23 section 3, which can be used by a court to determine the fine for a fiscal crime, as always one thirtieth of the lowest monthly salary. In determining the daily rate, the court takes into account the perpetrator’s income, personal and family circumstances, property rights and earning potential; the daily rate cannot be lower than one thirtieth of the lowest monthly salary at the time of the ruling by the lower court and cannot be greater than 400 times it.
In 2011, the minimum wage for workers will change. The lowest salary will grow from 1317 PLN to 1386 PLN. This amount was pronounced in the Cabinet Regulation of October 10, 2010 on the Amount of Minimum Wage for Work in 2011 (M.P. Nr 194, item 1288). In connection with this, the maximum daily rate foreseen in the Code, which the court can use to determine the fine for a fiscal crime (with the minimum monthly wage set at 1,386 PLN), can currently be from 46.20 PLN to 18,480.00 PLN.
According the the Penal and Fiscal code, the lowest possible number of rates is 10 and the highest is 720 (so from 462.00 PLN to 13,305,600.00 PLN), and Article 28 section 2 foresees – when there is an exceptional restriction to the fine (Article 38) or with a cumulative fine (Article 39) and a series of crimes (Article 40 section 3) - the possibility of setting an even higher number, which cannot however be more than 1080 daily rates (so a maximum of as much as 19,958,400.00 PLN). The number of daily rates of the upper limit of the fine, foreseen by the provisions of chapters 6-9 of the Penal and Fiscal Code, is varied and is: 120, 180, 240, 360, 480, and 720.
The burden, therefore, connected with a fine is significant. The limits of the fine described above do not restrict in any case the right of the court to set the fine in such a way that while the perpetrator’s income, his personal and family circumstances, property rights and earning potential are taken into account, the basic assumptions of the regulation are fulfilled, and at the same time the goals inherently connected with penalization of defined behavior on the basis of the Code are met.
