Podatek od towarów i usług w rolnictwie w Polsce i w Unii Europejskiej. Analiza porównawcza

Abstract

Regulations concerning VAT are of great specificity both in the European Union countries and in Poland. It results, among others, from the character of the agriculture production, its seasonalness as well as related time discrepancy between expenditures and sale receipts of agriculture products. These factors resulted in subjecting the agriculture to the special system of VAT which consists in enabling farmers to account for the tax by means of the flat rate compensation. This regulation is directed mainly to farms of little activity scale. Comparisons revealed that not all of the European Union countries give such opportunity to farmers, what is more, the discrepancy in details of suggested regulations (for example tax rates and lists of products subjected to them) are significant. It results in the fact that VAT burden borne by farmers diverse considerably concerning both the geographic depiction as well as the size and the profile of the farm. The Polish regulations concerning VAT were formulated, so they were adjusted to the 6th Directive regulating the harmonization of indirect taxes within the European Union limits. However, the agriculture was included in the VAT system not earlier than in the year 2000. This way, our law became adjusted to standards of the European Union but, above all, farmers were enabled to regain at least parts of taxes paid on input. At the same time, farmers were given the opportunity to choose between normal and flat rate scheme.