Changes of Rules Applicable to Value Added Tax

Abstract

Every year the state budget loses several dozen billions of zlotys. What provides the measure of the extent of this loss is the tax gap (although in fact it is not a gap) which shows the level of discrepancies between theoretical receipts due to the state budget and receipts actually collected in its fiscal function. The paper therefore explores the analysis of selected changes which have been implemented and which are commonly referred to as the tightening of the tax system. This is the reaction to those behaviours within legal and commercial exchanges which could be classified as a misuse of the tax system. The paper collates the most important, in the authors opinion, possible legal responses to exchange situations having as their consequence an impairment or threat to the financial interest of the state, including, in particular, the phenomenon for which the standard term in criminal law dogma is tax loss. in the paper, possible methods of countering tax losses in the tax system will be addressed, while identifying mechanisms which are relevant for the legal construction and specificities of the tax on goods and services. The existing legal regulations are not sufficient for preventing fiscal fraud; the structure of the tax itself and the rules on setting the tax rates are the source of the threats encountered, while the expectations placed upon the valued added tax by the EU and the Member States are not met.