The Tax Office has started using a tool that has been available since 2017, but for almost a decade no officials realized it could be used for this purpose. It is the Automatic License Plate Recognition System. Until now it was used to detect major traffic crimes. Now the “Treasury” has found a new purpose for this tool, which through monitoring began verifying whether company owners’ declarations about the use of company cars match reality. To the officials’ surprise it turned out that it does not always.
Will entrepreneurs have to return part of the tax?
Where did the idea of controlling the use of company cars come from? In this madness there may be a method. Entrepreneurs using company cars in a way that does not match their declaration are deceiving the State Treasury by avoiding tax payments. But from the start. A company buying a car, including sole proprietors, must declare how the car will be used. Whether exclusively for business purposes, or in a mixed cycle, i.e. business‑private. The first option is significantly more profitable for the entrepreneur because it allows full VAT deduction from invoices, including the purchase of the car and its operation, such as fuel purchases. However, it requires keeping a record of the vehicle’s mileage (exactly where and when it was driven, with an exact number of kilometers), creating a usage policy, and registering the car with the Tax Office.
The second option is less advantageous because it allows only half of the tax to be deducted, but it does not require all the formalities necessary in the first case. This is exactly what the Treasury is studying. Only drivers who claim full tax deductions are subject to control. Through the monitoring system, officials catch cars registered as company cars by license plate and check whether the place and time recorded match the entrepreneur’s declaration of where the car was at that time.
Will some entrepreneurs have to return tax?
Entrepreneurs who use company cars honestly do not need to worry about anything, unlike those who used a car registered as a company vehicle as if it were a private vehicle, hoping no one would check. The Tax Office in Krakow handled the verification of entrepreneurs’ declarations and the actual movement of vehicles.
For some entrepreneurs – as media reports indicate – summonses have already been sent to submit an explanation, because the entrepreneur’s declaration about car usage differed from the location recorded by monitoring. In this case, a justification that the entrepreneur was unaware of what happened to the car cannot be applied, because the Automatic License Plate Recognition System records not only the license plate number but also the exact place and time it was captured. If the Treasury proves that the vehicle’s use was inconsistent with the declaration, the entrepreneur will have to return half of the recovered VAT, treating the situation as if the car is used for business‑private purposes.
See also: Won a court case against the Treasury. The Treasury lost nearly 200 thousand zlotys due to slowness
