Yesterday, the Government adopted a draft act amending the act on counteracting excessive delays in commercial transactions and the act on public finances. Now the Sejm will deal with the project.
The proposed amendment provides solutions in two main areas: clarifying the provisions and increasing the efficiency of proceedings conducted by the Head of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.
A significant change is the exclusion from the scope of the reporting obligation of companies forming tax capital groups.
Further, public healthcare entities and healthcare entities in the form of capital companies established and run by the State Treasury or local government units were excluded from the reporting obligation.
The draft also provides that the following will be excluded from reporting:
- payments under the insurance and reinsurance activity;
- expired payments;
- payments within capital groups.
Large entrepreneurs will make declarations of their status not only at the moment of concluding the first commercial transaction (at the latest), but also as a consequence of achieving / losing this status.
The deadline for submitting the report is to be extended from January 31 to April 30.
The draft proposes that the entity should submit a correction of the report in the event that the data contained in the previously submitted report changes in at least one item by at least 10% of the value.
A new, slightly simplified algorithm for calculating the penalty imposed by the Head of UOKiK is also proposed. The effect of this change will also be the elimination of the grounds for waiving the imposition of a penalty, e.g. due to the surplus of overdue receivables over liabilities.
As for the other changes:
- the report should show the value of cash benefits received or performed within the period specified in the contract (and when the contract term is inconsistent with the statutory term – in relation to the maximum statutory term), instead of reporting the benefits provided and received within the time limits counted from the date of issuing the invoice;
- it is proposed to clarify that the reporting obligation will apply to those entities whose data appeared in the list of CIT taxpayers by September 30;
- values in foreign currencies are to be converted into PLN according to the accounting principles adopted in a given entity;
- the introduction of the so-called “soft calls” – summons of the authority prior to the initiation of proceedings (optional);
- introducing the possibility of submitting an application for deferment of payment of the imposed penalty or dividing it into installments, due to the important interest of the applicant;
- introducing the ineffectiveness of a contractual reservation excluding or limiting the creditor’s right to transfer receivables in overdue commercial transactions.
As a rule, the previous regulations applied to commercial transactions concluded before the entry into force of the amendment.
