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Sealing the Tax Gap: Improving Tax Compliance in Poland

May 10, 2021

Online

  • PRESENTATION:

    Since 2016, Poland has systematically implemented a number of actions which helped to significantly reduce the tax gap by about 50 percent. In parallel, as part of broader reforms to improve effectiveness and create synergies, Poland merged the customs and tax administration into one body, the National Revenue Administration (NRA), which became operational in March 2017. According to the European Commission, Poland¡¯s VAT compliance gap (the difference between the liability under full compliance and revenue) between 2010 and 2015 was around 25 percent of the revenue, representing approximately PLN 40 billion of lost revenues each year because of VAT noncompliance.  Tax revenues were lost to large-scale fraud, more specifically missing trader and carousel fraud, and also to forms of evasion (e.g., underreporting, non-filing), tax avoidance (e.g., misalignment of rates), errors, omissions, and bankruptcies.. 

    During this session, the speakers presented how estimates of tax gaps in Poland, especially in VAT, helped to diagnose the compliance issues, what measures including both changes in the tax policy and tax administration have been introduced and applied to reduce the gaps, and what remains to be done to sustain and further close the gaps.

  • OPENING REMARKS

    Marcus Heinz, Resident Representative for Poland and the Baltic States, World Bank

    CHAIR

    David Palmer, Senior Consultant, Tax, Governance Global Practice, Europe and Central Asia, World Bank

    SPEAKERS

    Artur Gostomski, Director of Large Business Department, Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Poland

    Grzegorz Poniatowski, Vice-President, Centre for Social and Economic Research (CASE), Poland

    DISCUSSANTS

    Rajul Awasthi, Senior Public Sector Specialist and Co-Lead of the Domestic Resource Mobilization GSG, World Bank

    Iwona Warzecha, Senior Financial Management Specialist, Governance Global Practice, World Bank

    CLOSING REMARKS

    Alberto Leyton, Lead Public Sector Specialist, Governance Global Practice, Europe and Central Asia, World Bank