NEWSLETTER
No. 34 July 2024
Malinowski & Associates. Legal Advisors. Partnership
Table of Contents:
1.Additional maternity leave for parents of children born prematurely.
Conditions for granting additional maternity leave
2. proposed protection for additional maternity leave
3 Easier access for entrepreneurs to the public procurement market.
4 New conditions for entity exemptions for entrepreneurs on VAT grounds.
5 The future of the e-Invoice system and further proposals for change.
1. Additional maternity leave for parents of children born prematurely
The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy has submitted a draft amendment to the Labor Code, which is specifically designed to assist parents of children born prematurely.
Proposed changes
The changes will include.
The introduction of additional maternity leave, which will be granted along with the other leaves: maternity, paternity, parental and parental leave.
The author of the draft, understanding the different life situations resulting from the birth of a child requiring long-term hospital care, met the expectations of female employees who use maternity leave by spending time in the hospital.
In addition, after the cessation of hospital care and during the course of further treatment, many times the child’s parents are forced to use their leave of absence.
Conditions for granting additional maternity leave
Additional leave will be granted to an employee or an employee-father raising a child, optionally, upon request, immediately after the use of maternity leave, in three dimensions:
- 1 week of additional maternity leave for each week of the child’s stay in the hospital until the end of the 15th week.
week after delivery, if the child was born up to 28 weeks of pregnancy or with a weight of no more than 1,000 grams; - 1 week of additional maternity leave for each week of the child’s stay in the hospital until the end of the 8th week.
week after delivery, if the child was born between 28 and 36 weeks of pregnancy and with a birth weight of more than 1,000 grams; - 1 week of additional maternity leave for each week of the child’s stay in the hospital from the 5th
day until the expiration of the 8th
week after childbirth, if the child was born after the completion of 36.
week of pregnancy and is hospitalized, provided that the child’s stay in the hospital after delivery is at least 2 consecutive days in the period from the 5.
to 28.
day after delivery.
In addition, the additional maternity leave will be covered by the protection previously provided for in the Labor Code, i.e.
until the date of termination of the leave, the employer will not be able to conduct preparations for termination or termination without notice of the employment relationship and terminate or dissolve the employment relationship, unless there are reasons justifying termination without notice due to the employee’s fault.
2. proposed protection for additional maternity leave
The changes proposed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy in the draft already mentioned above will also include the Law on Special Rules for Termination of Employment Relations with Employees for Reasons Not Attributable to Employees with respect to termination of employment relations within the framework of group layoffs.
However, they will be changes of an adaptive nature.
The protection provided by this law will cover employees who have taken additional maternity leave.
During the period of coverage under the special protection against termination or termination of employment, the employer, it is worth recalling that, as it has functioned so far for other leaves, will only be able to terminate the existing terms and conditions of work and pay also from the date on which the employee applies for additional maternity leave.
If the employment contract is terminated with an employee who has applied for additional maternity leave, but who at the same time has not agreed to the proposed terms and conditions of work and pay by the employer and the termination of the employment contract at the end of the notice period, the onus will be on the employer to sufficiently prove that the termination of the terms and conditions of work and pay was for other reasons.
3. Easier access for entrepreneurs to the public procurement market
A draft law on certification of public procurement contractors and amendments to certain other laws was submitted for work at the Government Legislation Center in May 2024.
The draft implements the solutions provided by EU regulations.
Less paperwork
At present, a major burden for those seeking public contracts is the paperwork required to demonstrate that a contractor meets the conditions for contract performance, with existing regulations providing no simplified path for submitting documentation.
The solution is to be the proposed draft law on certification of public procurement contractors, introducing conditions and a procedure for applying for certification.
The main goal is to facilitate and streamline the process of subject verification of contractors, by introducing certification of contractors into the Polish public procurement system.
The issuance of the certificate will confirm that the contractor is a reliable entity and that there are no circumstances that could exclude the contractor from the contract award procedure, and that the contract will be executed in a manner that gives a guarantee of due performance.
The ability to perform soundly will be examined based on technical and professional capacity, such as experience, qualifications and technical potential.
The project envisages issuing a certificate for a period of one to three years.
4.
Nowe warunki zwolnień podmiotowych dla przedsiębiorców na gruncie podatku VAT
One of the latest proposals for regulatory changes is that contained in the draft law amending the Value Added Tax Law.
The bill proposes to introduce provisions for a special exemption procedure for small businesses based in member states other than the one where VAT is due.
Current regulations
Currently, the VAT Law allows taxpayers who have a registered office in Poland and at the same time whose annual sales value did not exceed a total of PLN 200,000 in the previous tax year to apply a subjective exemption.
However, the VAT Law does not allow such exemptions for taxpayers without a registered office in Poland, regardless of the amount of sales they make annually.
As a result, non-established taxpayers must account for VAT on their first sales in the country.
Implications
If the amendments are adopted in the form proposed by the draft, it will be possible to apply the subjective VAT exemption in member states that have introduced a special procedure for small businesses.
Taxpayers with headquarters in other member states, if they manage to meet the conditions set forth in the VAT law, will be able to use the subjective exemption in Poland.
At the same time, taxpayers with a seat of economic activity in Poland, after meeting certain conditions, will be able to take advantage of the subjective exemption in other member states, in accordance with the conditions set by those countries.
5. The future of the e-Invoice system and further proposals for change
The National e-Invoicing System will not go into effect in 2024.
The president on June 5, 2024, signed a law making changes to the mandatory KSeF effective date of February 1, 2026.
What’s next?
The topic of KSeF implementation is not over at this stage. The Ministry of Finance and the National Tax Chamber held another consultation meeting on July 18, 2024, where further proposals for changes were discussed. The next stage of the introduction of the KSeF will concern splitting the obligation to introduce the KSeF. The proposal of the Ministry of Finance includes the introduction of KSeF in two phases: for entrepreneurs whose sales value including the amount of tax will exceed PLN 200 million in 2025, the effective date of the obligation is February 1, 2026. On the other hand, from April 1, 2026, the remaining entrepreneurs would be covered by KSeF. In addition to this, it can be expected that the next stages of work on KSeF will include new planned solutions, including: allowing invoice attachments for industries issuing invoices with a complex range of data, modification of the logical structure of e-invoices, among others, in terms of the rules for indicating the payment deadline, alignment of KSeF environments – full implementation of “business” functionalities – issuing invoices in KSeF in the target model, but without changing the obligations of taxpayers. The debate also included the issue of consumer invoices and their optional or mandatory transmission to KSeF, as well as ways to simplify the system by using offline mode and the possibility of issuing invoices up to PLN 450 outside the system.
