The proposed amendment to the Tax Code, about which we have already informed you, was, following heated debates, finally approved by the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament on 21 March 2018. The original proposal, which substantially exceeded the requirement of the directive on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation on which it should have been based, was, in the end, adopted in a relatively compromising form.
Provision of New Information to the Tax Administrator
Persons that are obliged to identify and check clients in line with the Act on Selected Measures against Legitimisation of Proceeds of Crime and Financing of Terrorism (the “AML Act”) will newly be obliged to provide the tax administrator, at its request, with data obtained in identifying and checking the client as well as with documents obtained during the process that contain the information, and with information as to the method through which the information was obtained.
Protection of Professional Secrecy
However, only the General Financial Directorate (ie the central liaison office for international cooperation in tax administration) will be able to request the above stated information and documents from attorneys-at-law, notaries, tax advisors, judicial distraint officers and auditors, and it will only be able to do so for the purposes of international cooperation in tax administration. Said professionals will be obliged to provide the information under the same conditions and restrictions as in providing information to the Financial Analytical Office under the AML Act. In so doing, attorneys-at-law and notaries will, to a substantial degree, communicate through relevant professional chambers.
According to the transitory provision, the new obligation will additionally only apply to information that the above stated professionals obtained subsequent to its effective date. The amendment is proposed to come into effect on the day that the act is promulgated in the Collection of Laws. The transitory provision does not apply to persons liable under the AML Act that do not carry out one of the above stated professions, and the tax administrator will be allowed to contact them with a request for information at any time subject to the condition that the information is necessary for tax administration and that it cannot be obtained from the register maintained by the tax administrator or another public authority.
Breaking Banking Secrecy Restrictions
The amendment also extends the range of information that the tax administrator may request about clients of financial institutions or payment services providers. The tax administrator will newly have the power to request details about unique identifiers connected with accounts, persons with the account handling authorisation, persons that deposited funds in the account, payment recipients, custody and leases of safety boxes. The range of information that the tax administrator will be allowed to request from banks and other payment services providers no longer includes information about e-banking (eg the IP address or the phone number of the device used). In justified cases and subject to statutory conditions being met, public authorities other than tax administration bodies that the law designates as tax administrators will also be able to request information.
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