Polish ombudsman intervenes in tax dispute affecting 19,000 property sellers

The dispute over the so-called registration relief concerns around 19,000 Poles who may have unjustly paid income tax on the sale of properties purchased between 2007 and 2008. Polish Ombudsman Marcin Wiącek is intervening in the matter, pointing to the excessive formalism of tax authorities, which led to financial dramas for many families. Taxpayers lost the right to the tax exemption solely because they failed to submit a declaration of registration on time, despite actually meeting the condition of living in the sold property for the required period. According to media reports, in extreme cases, the tax authorities enforced amounts reaching up to 250,000 złoty including interest. registration relief

Problem resulted from the construction of regulations, which made the right to the relief conditional on fulfilling the bureaucratic obligation to inform the office about registration. Although administrative courts in later years began issuing rulings favorable to citizens, recognizing that the mere fact of registration should suffice to obtain the exemption, for many people help came too late. The tax authorities had already enforced the dues in thousands of cases, and deadlines for reopening proceedings often expired before a new line of jurisprudence was established. The system of taxing property sales in Poland has undergone numerous changes; before 2007, the so-called 'pension relief' was in effect, and after 2008, a 'housing relief' was introduced. The registration relief was a transitional solution that, due to imprecise provisions about the necessity of submitting declarations, became a trap for thousands of taxpayers. Marcin Wiącek, serving as the Polish Ombudsman since 2021, continues the office's long-standing efforts for a systemic solution to this problem and compensation for those affected by unjust decisions.

The current intervention by the Ombudsman aims to draw attention to the scale of the problem and the need to repair the damage caused by rigid adherence to the letter of the law at the expense of its spirit. Many people who found themselves in a dispute with the tax authorities still struggle with the consequences of enforcement by bailiffs or the need to repay loans taken out to cover the tax. The scale of the phenomenon, covering 19,000 people, shows that this was not an isolated problem but a systemic error in communication between the state and the citizen. 19 tys. (people) — number of taxpayers affected by the relief dispute

History of the registration relief dispute: January 1, 2007 — Introduction of the relief; December 31, 2008 — End of purchases eligible for relief; July 23, 2021 — New Ombudsman; March 12, 2026 — Ombudsman's intervention

prawda: Taxpayers indeed lost the right to registration relief solely due to failure to submit a formal declaration, despite meeting the substantive condition of being registered for a year. (Polish Ombudsman)