Peculiarities of legal regulation of the tax system of local self-government bodies in the Republic of Poland

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the peculiarities of the legal regulation of the tax system of local self-government bodies in the Republic of Poland.
 It is shown that the modern system of local taxes began to form in the 90s of the last century, together with the restoration of the institution of local self-government. Despite the constitutional enshrinement of the right of all local self-government bodies to determine the amount of local taxes, ordinary legislation grants tax powers exclusively to the lowest link in the three-level system - the commune. Financing of the functions and powers of local self-government bodies of voivodships and poviats takes place through deductions from national taxes and fees. The author focuses on the existence of a distinction between the terms "local taxes” and "taxes of local self-government bodies” in the Polish doctrine of tax law. Local taxes are taxes that, by virtue of the law, are a permanent, indefinite and exclusive source of income for local budgets. Meanwhile, taxes of local self-government bodies are payments in respect of which local self­government bodies have tax powers. In light of the accepted criteria, for example, inheritance and gift tax is a local tax, but cannot be called a tax of local governments. Funds from this tax are fully credited to the budget of the territorial community, but local self-government bodies do not have tax authority over it. The list of local taxes is contained in the Law "On Local Taxes and Fees”. However, in reality, this list is incomplete and does not include a number of local taxes that are regulated by other legislative acts. In general, the list of local taxes is quite voluminous, in which only real estate tax, vehicle tax, forest tax and agricultural tax belong to the taxes of local self-government bodies. They meet the formal and material criteria that characterize the "own income” of local self-government units, while others only meet the formal criteria.