Sources of tax law in the Polish legal system

Abstract

In the literature, the sources of law are considered to be “a formalised act of state authority containing legal provisions”.1 In order to assess the nature of a designated act of state authority as a source of law, its form and the appropriate procedure are important. Therefore, the basic objective of the article is to demonstrate the sources of making tax law, with a particular emphasis on their classification in the tax law system. In fact, the position of particular types of sources of law in the system depends on three types of factors, such as: the position in the system of public authorities from which the source of law comes, its contents and the mode of its creation. Only a cumulative analysis of these three factors allows the prioritization of the legal acts constituting the sources of tax law. Despite notable achievements in the body of relevant literature, an attempt was made to re-analyse it in order to systematize the concepts and principles related to the subject matter in question. Furthermore, the jurisprudence was examined to emphasize that the sources of tax law also constitute a matter of argument in the judicature. Analysis of legal regulations in force and empirical methods were used as the basis for the study.