Poland looks ahead to new tax incentives

From 2022 new tax incentives will come into force in both Polish corporate and personal income tax. There are also some adjustments to existing incentives to make the incentives more interesting or more efficient. 

The most awaited incentive is the robotisation relief. It is expected to allow the taxpayers to upgrade and automatise production processes more willingly and in a broader scope. The incentive will let the taxpayers deduct up to 50% of robotisation expenses incurred in a given year. Those are costs of purchase of new fixed assets as well as auxiliaries and peripherals, intangibles and staff training.  The relief is episodic – it will start in 2022 and end in 2026. 

Another incentive worth mentioning is the expansion relief that will allow the deduction up to PLN 1 million of the cost of sales development of new products or on new markets. These would be the marketing and promotion expenses, fairs and exhibitions, certifications (not only necessary but also optional), trademarks and packaging redesign.

As the supplement to the R&D tax relief a prototype relief will allow taxpayers to deduct up to 30% of costs of test production and introducing on the market the products being  the result of the taxpayers R&D. 

Costs of purchase of new fixed assets and raw materials for the purpose of test production can be deducted as well as costs of certifications, permits and other documentation necessary to bring the product to the market (and only that documentation – contrary to the expansion relief), product’s life-cycle and costs of environmental technology verification (ETV).

R&D relief will be adjusted and, from 2022, taxpayers will be allowed to deduct 200% of R&D staff remuneration (it is 100% at present). At the same time the ‘innovative personnel’ relief will allow to utilise the carried forward R&D deduction right after the annual tax return is filed. 

At present the carried forward R&D deduction can be utilised only after the following tax year ends and the tax return reports income. From 2023, the taxpayer will be allowed to keep during the tax year the personal income tax instalments on innovative staff salaries in part corresponding to carried forward R&D deduction. This can be seen as an alternative to R&D cash ‘chargeback’ that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) may claim in the first two years of business. Contrary to chargeback the ‘innovative personnel’ relief will apply to all (not only MSMEs).

A small (but still) incentive is addressed to entities choosing to be listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Costs of initial public offering will be deductible up to 150% of administrative expenses and prospectus. The cost of legal assistance will be deductible up to 50% but not more than PLN 50,000. 

Taxpayers that buy subsidiaries seated in Poland or in double tax treaty countries will be allowed to benefit from the acquisition incentive. This incentive will allow the deduction of the cost of legal assistance, administrative fees and taxes up to PLN 250,000 incurred with regard to the share purchase. The target should be a body corporate running analogical or complimentary business to the purchaser’s one. A 50%+ of voting rights should be acquired and the target cannot be related to the investor during the two years before the acquisition. The relief requires the ownership structure to last for at least 36 months (some corporate transformations allowed).   

There CSR tax relief will allow a deduction of up to 50% of expenses incurred to support port, education and culture. 

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