They took advantage of the relief and now have to pay up to 200,000 PLN. Thousands of Poles are facing this problem.

• In 2007-2008, the so-called registration relief was in force, which exempted from income tax upon the sale of an apartment.
• - The condition for using the relief was to register for at least 12 months and submit an appropriate declaration, which many taxpayers were not aware of because it was not clearly stated in the regulations - writes Gazeta Wyborcza.
• The Constitutional Tribunal ruled in 2024 that the declaration was not necessary, but its ruling is not considered binding by the current government.

Nearly 19,000 people fell into the trap of Polish tax regulations. As Gazeta Wyborcza recalls, in 2006 the government abolished the housing tax relief, which had been in effect since the 1970s. According to its rules, when a flat was sold within five years of its purchase, 19% income tax was charged only on the difference between the purchase price of the new flat and the price of the new one. If the new flat was more expensive than the previous one, tax was not due because no actual income was generated. In its place, the so-called registration tax relief was introduced.

The relief in question concerned tax exemption for apartments purchased between 2007 and 2008. To be eligible for this exemption, one had to be registered in the property being sold for at least 12 months and submit a declaration to the tax office confirming this registration and the intention to benefit from the relief.

However, importantly, the issue of the declaration was not addressed in the Act, but in transitional provisions. Furthermore, neither notaries nor tax officials informed interested parties of the need to submit such a declaration . Gazeta Wyborcza reports that no template for such a document was even prepared. "It could have been prepared on a piece of paper, on the spot," we read.

As a result, many people failed to submit this document, and now the Tax Office is demanding payment of up to several hundred thousand złoty in taxes. Some have even been convicted of tax crimes.

The Marek Isański Foundation became interested in the case and, together with cooperating law firms, led to a change in the administrative courts' jurisprudence. The courts ruled that failure to submit a declaration should not be an obstacle to benefiting from the provisions.

Very few people benefited from the change in jurisprudence, as the vast majority already had legally binding decisions imposing a nonexistent tax. Legally binding, but illegal, as they robbed citizens of their wealth.

- Marek Isański points out in an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza.

In 2018, the Foundation filed an application on this matter with the Constitutional Tribunal, but it was only in early July of this year that the Tribunal decided that submitting a declaration was not a necessary condition for benefiting from the relief.

"The Tribunal found that in order to achieve the purpose for which the legislator introduced the so-called registration relief, it was sufficient to meet the condition of registering the taxpayer for permanent residence for a period of no less than 12 months. It was the residence (stay) in a specific building or premises for a minimum period that was the relevant circumstance when taking advantage of the registration relief, and not the taxpayer's submission of a declaration of registration to the competent tax authority," the Constitutional Tribunal stated.

According to the Tribunal, the offices had the necessary instruments to check whether the taxpayer was entitled to the relief or not, and a declaration was not necessary for this purpose.

As Gazeta Wyborcza writes, this seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel for the aggrieved parties, but the Constitutional Tribunal's judgments are not published and are not considered binding, because Donald Tusk's government decided in 2024 that the Constitutional Tribunal in its current composition is incapable of performing the tasks specified in the Constitution, and publishing its decisions in official journals could lead to the perpetuation of the rule of law crisis.

Moreover, the Ministry of Finance is of the opinion that "accepting the proposal for special treatment of taxpayers who have not met the statutory condition for benefiting from the registration relief would be unfair from the point of view of other persons who have sold real estate and have already paid the tax ."