Despite its selective nature, the excise duty is one of the most effective sources of the state budget revenues. A fundamental influence on the receipts from this source is exercised by: the kinds and number of articles recognized as excisable and the volume of their sales in the country and of their imports, the excise duty rates, the extent of granted allowances and exemptions, as well as the efficiency in collecting the revenues from this duty. The range of excise duty applicability is very large and covers a great number of articles, many of them of no significant fiscal importance. At the same time, the list of allowances and exemptions introduced both by acts of Parliament or by ordinances of government bodies is excessively extended. The bulk of revenues obtained from the excise duty comes from taxation of alcoholic beverages, tobacco articles and fuels, while the source of greatest importance is the duty on domestic sales of goods that, in 1994-2001, provided on the average 87.7% of the total excise duty revenues. The taxation of imports played a much smaller role. The rates of excise duty burden are relatively high and since the start of their functioning have been many times modified. However, in recent years a trend towards stabilizing the excise duty rates, and even towards reducing some of them, can be observed. Excessive excise rate duties led to deterioration in the condition of the spirits, wine and tobacco branches. Financial difficulties of some firms, especially those producing alcoholic beverages, led to accumulation of arrears in the discharge of their excise duty liabilities and to remission of a part of their indebtedness on that score. The excise duty is a flexible source of budget revenues and it is the Minister of Finance who plays the role of the main author of the state's policy in this area. He has broad powers in shaping the rates and introducing the allowances and exemptions and, consequently, in shaping the revenues from the excise duty. The excessive authority of the Minister of Finance and the use of excise duty as a source of additional revenue whenever the budget is in critical situation is often subject for criticism.
Fuel declarations were introduced into Polish legal framework as a consequence of the lower excise taxation for oils to be used for heating purposes, as opposite to oils meant for the propulsion of vehicles. When providing the fuel declaration, the purchasers of low-excise oil declare they will only use it for heating purposes. It should be noticed though that in practice the seller and not the purchaser is punished when the fuel declaration does not fulfill all formal requirements, and this irrespective of the reasons for the invalidity (e.g., in case the purchaser fills the declaration with data which is wrong or intentionally false, or in case the seller acted without due care). Considering the practical negative implications that can potentially result for sellers of fuel oil – such as the application of higher excise rates, as if the oil were used for the propulsion of vehicles – doubts arise on whether the current system fulfills its purpose of preventing the misusage of oil and protecting the sellers from negative consequences resulting from misbehavior from the side of the purchasers.
The study focuses on the current issues related to adjudication on matters of preferential rates of duty on fuel oil. Polish legislation gives the possibility of preferential taxation of fuel oil sales, provided that numerous conditions are met. In order to take advantage of the preferential tax, the taxpayer must inter alia, obtain a statement from the purchaser of oil that the goods are purchased for heating purposes (‘fuel statement’). Initially the legal requirements for fuel statements were set in a form of regulations issued on the basis of the provisions of the Law on excise duty. is practice caused much controversy as to the compliance with the Polish Constitution. For this reason, these regulations were, and still are a subject of the question of law submitted to the Constitutional Court. Moreover, such regulations are to be interpreted and applied in individual cases by administrative courts. The administrative courts, while resolving cases, indicate the purpose of the regulations and their importance to the outcoming of the case. is paper describes the current state of adjudication in matters of fuel statements. The study focuses on the consequences of the defective statement of fuel in the sphere of substantive law. Initially, the case-law was not consistent. There were different views as to the importance of the fuel statements in tax proceedings. Because of the doubts of compliance with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of the provisions related to statements of fuel, in several cases the courts decided to suspend the proceedings and submit a question of law to the Constitutional Court. Final settling of the question of the constitutionality of these provisions by the Constitutional Court’s ruling issued on 7 September 2010, Ref. P 94/08, publ Z.U. 2010/7A/76 means that the proceedings have to be resumed. So far, only few of such cases were resolved by administrative courts’ ruling. The paper also comments the current law related to the statements of fuel.
The paper examines the compliance of the regulation of the Minister of Finance of 22 March 2002 on the excise duty, regulation of the Minister of Finance of 23 December 2003 on excise duty and the regulation of the Minister of Finance of 22 April 2004 on the reduction of excise duty with Article 51 (1) and (4) of the Constitution. All of these regulations foresee the possibility to benefit from reduced rates of excise duty on the purchase of heating oils for heating purposes, provided that the seller receives from the buyer, who is a natural person, a statement that the goods are intended for heating purposes. In these statements a number of personal details is required. However, the Article 51 (1) of the Constitution establishes the principle that persons may be required to disclose information about themselves only on the basis of the statute and the Article 51 ( 5) of the Constitution stipulates that the rules and procedures for collection and sharing of information are specified by a statute. Thus, the analysis of the Constitution leads to the conclusion that the provisions of the regulations are inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution.
Under Polish law a seller of heating oil is required to obtain the declaration of a buyer that the heating oil would be used for heating purposes. Otherwise, the seller cannot apply an excise duty rate applicable to the heating oil, which is significantly lower than a rate applicable to the oil used as motor fuel. The authors of this article have analyzed the consequences of irregularities in these declarations for the sellers from the perspective of Polish and EU law.
A characteristic feature of any excise tax is that it represents a significant component of price-settings. Expectations of the government, related to the change of the tax rate for this type of tax, consists in a presumption of the increased revenues to the state budget, even though it could bring so called lateral shift of the tax. Its impact would be a decrease in a consumption of the other commodities. The aim of article is to highlight some macroeconomic consequences of the Spirit market development in Slovakia, with an emphasis on increasing excise taxes on alcohol, its consumption, production and foreign trade balance. The attention of the authors is drawn to the fact that in addition to the high rate of tax affecting the amount of revenue collected by the state, other factors such as consumer saving, lifestyle change, counter advertising and the introduction of more stringent measures in relation to road traffic as well as pressure on imports of identical commodities from abroad, can equally affect state revenue.
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