sobota, 12 stycznia 2019

PENALTIES FOR NON-SUBMISSION OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS TO FINANCIAL DOCUMENT REPOSITORY



Did you buy a company in Poland? Don’t forget about obligation to keep accounts and submit financial statements to a Registration Authority. Our law office helps to establish a company and to conduct current business as well as providing accounting services, business, tax and financial consultancy (credits, leasing, banking services), virtual office and other. We also assist in the event  Court of Registry or  other public institution  should initiate enforcement proceedings in absence of the above named reporting.

In accordance with the provisions of The Polish Accounting Act, a company manager (a board) should submit the annual accounts, the audit report, if such a report had to be provided, a copy of resolution or provisions of the approval authority on approval of annual accounts and distribution of profit or loss covering, as well as - in certain cases set forth in the Act - a Report on Activities, to the relevant court register, within 15 days from the approval of annual accounts.

The Accounting Act provides for criminal liability for failure to conduct financial reporting. Therefore, an entity which, in violation of the law: 1) does not have its financial statements audited by statutory auditor, 2) does not provide or provides inaccurate data, explanations or statements to the auditor, or  obstructs the auditor in discharge of his duties, 3) does not submit financial statements for the release, 4) does not submit financial statements, consolidated financial statements, reports on activities, financial group reports, report on payments to public administration, consolidated report on payments to public administration to the relevant court register - shall be subject to a fine or the penalty of imprisonment..

In turn, the Act on the National Court Register states that submission of documents referred to in the Accounting Act may be carried out using  electronic system, made available for that purpose by the Minister of Justice. The application should be provided with qualified digital signature or trusted signature.
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To use "Free submission of financial documents" functionality, one should have an account established in the system. User is   entitled to log on the system if  he has an account established at eKRS-site, in "S-24 – establishing of company, other applications" system. For accounts created before 15 March 2018, one  have to authorize the account "signing" it with a qualified signature or by a signature confirmed by ePUAP trusted profile (ePUAP is an abbreviation for Electronic Platform of Public Administration Services) in order to use all the functionalities of the system. Account authorization is a one-off operation.

The National Court Register Act stipulates that if it is found that the application for registration or the documents which are to be submitted obligatory, have not been submitted despite the deadlineexpiry , the registration court calls the obliged entity for submission and sets additional 7-day term.  The Court makes such  calls under the pain of applying the penalties provided by provisions of the Civil Procedure Code related to enforcement of non-financial claims. In the event of failure to comply with obligations within the deadline, the registration court shall impose a fine on the obliged entity. The registration court may impose a fine repeatedly. In a single order, the Court cannot impose a fine higher than one thousand PLN, unless the three-time penalties have proved ineffective. The total amount of penalties for the same trespass  cannot exceed one hundred thousand PLN. In the event the debtor performed his duties or in event the proceedings were terminated the fines not paid until then, are forfeited.