Today, acting as defense counsel, I had the pleasure of hearing the judgment of the District Court in Łomża, acquitting my client of the charge of committing a crime under Art. 56 of the Fiscal Criminal Code (tax fraud).
The case is particularly interesting because the circumstance that prompted the Head of the Podlasie Customs and Fiscal Office in Białystok to bring charges was the fact that in 2012, the Cypriot company managed by the defendant paid him remuneration for serving as director in the amount of over PLN 5,000,000. The tax authority – acting as public prosecutor – questioned the payment of this remuneration in conjunction with several related transactions.
Art. 56 of the Fiscal Criminal Code (so-called tax fraud)
This provision penalizes taxpayers who, by providing false or incomplete data to the tax authority, expose public finances to loss by understating the tax obligation or overstating the tax refund. In the discussed case, the prosecution argued that the payment of director’s remuneration by the Cypriot company constituted a scheme aimed at reducing the tax obligation in Poland.
The court, however, after analyzing the evidence, concluded that the payment of the director’s remuneration was justified, consistent with the company’s articles of association and Cypriot law, and did not constitute tax fraud. The acquittal is an important signal that legitimate corporate structures and remuneration arrangements, even in international settings, should not be automatically treated as criminal schemes by tax authorities.
Paweł Osiński
Attorney specializing in white-collar criminal law and international corporate law