Poland's Ministry of Finance announced that the Council of Ministers has adopted a further set of draft deregulation laws spanning tax administration and several areas of financial-market regulation. The package would limit late-payment interest consequences of extended tax and customs-fiscal audits, simplify a condition for holding companies to use a corporate income tax exemption on disposals of subsidiary shares, and modernise complaint-handling by enabling electronic complaints and electronic responses across financial market entities. It also changes termination and premium refund rules for compulsory motor and agricultural insurance and relaxes the conditions for merging investment fund units. Under the draft amendment to the Tax Ordinance, late-payment interest for the period of a tax or customs-fiscal audit would not be charged if the audit lasts more than six months, while the existing non-accrual rule for prolonged tax proceedings would remain, including where a decision is not served within three months of initiating proceedings; the draft sets entry into force 14 days after publication in the Journal of Laws. The corporate income tax amendment would remove the requirement for a holding company to submit a statement at least five days before a disposal to access the Polish Holding Company exemption for gains on the sale of shares in a domestic subsidiary, with entry into force set for the day after publication and applying to disposals made from that date. Complaint-handling changes would apply to all financial market entities, including banks, insurers, pension societies, payment institutions and intermediaries, requiring firms to provide electronic channels for complaints and to respond using the same channel by default while preserving the option of a paper response, with entry into force set for three months after publication. For compulsory insurance, a new vehicle owner or person taking over a farm would be able to specify the contract termination date (no earlier than the date the notice is submitted), and premium refunds would be calculated from the actual termination date; these amendments are set to apply 14 days after publication. Investment fund changes would allow fund unit mergers without the current condition of a significant drop in unit value while keeping existing investor information duties, and are set to enter into force within 14 days of publication.

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