As previously announced – below is a short article about the Polish legal changes regarding the 2018 annual financial statements .

As most business owners already know, it's slowly becoming time to prepare the documents for the 2018 financial statements. The obligation to prepare financial statements for the previous financial year applies to companies subject to the provisions of the Accounting Act, i.e., those that must keep complete accounting records ( this does not apply to sole proprietorships, civil partnerships, and, among others, natural persons ).

Due to differing interpretations of the law, there were unfortunately numerous problems last year with the filing of annual financial statements – this primarily affected applications from individuals (mostly representatives of corporate bodies ) who did not a Polish PESEL number . For this reason, the Polish legislature made several amendments to the law, which were also intended to resolve the aforementioned problems.

The most significant change concerns the format in which the 2018 annual financial statements must be prepared. Current legislation stipulates that all annual financial statements electronically in XML format . This means that a paper application will be returned to the applicant (or their representative) by the Polish Registry Court be signed with a qualified electronic signature or using an ePUAP profile qualified electronic signature (Polish: podpis kwalifikowany ) can be easily purchased from specific institutions or companies after registration and identity verification . Obtaining a signature using an ePUAP profile, on the other hand, requires several steps and a visit to the relevant municipal authority. Therefore, business owners often choose to use a lawyer who (in most cases) possesses a qualified electronic signature and can submit the application. Of course, legal representation before the municipal authority is also possible in order to obtain an ePUAP signature .

The financial documents required for closing the 2018 financial year depend on the company's legal structure. In most cases, however, they include:

• the balance sheet ,
• a profit and loss statement as well as
• the additional information on the annual financial statements .

The annual financial statements should no later than three months after the balance sheet date (normally three months from December 31). The corporate bodies then have three months to review and approve all relevant documents (i.e., six months from December 31 ).

The annual financial statements, along with additional documents (e.g., resolutions on the review and approval of the management report or the coverage of losses ), are sent to the locally competent Polish commercial register court . A fee is charged for the application.