Reducing the Vat Gap in Poland

Abstract

The main goal of the paper is to study the effectiveness of legal changes introduced in 2016 which were aimed at reduction of the VAT gap in Poland. The study consists of a normative, legal and quantitative analysis of data provided by the Ministry of Finance and shows the financial scale of VAT gap reduction. The thesis put forward in the paper assumes that the changes in law introduced in 2016 made it possible to effectively reduce the VAT gap in Poland and to tighten the system of VAT collection. The author managed to confirm the thesis in the course of the conducted research. The paper also emphasizes that the Polish tax on goods and services is well harmonized with its EU counterpart. Also the activities aimed at combating the phenomenon of VAT fraud seem to have brought positive results. At the same time, the central invoice register which is due to be implemented in July 2019, is expected to be a significant improvement.