Due to the COVID-19 situation deadline for registration in Central Register of Beneficial Owners (Centralny Rejestr Beneficjentów Rzeczywistych – CRBR) has been moved to 13th of July, 2020. As it is coming near, below you can find information about who should register and how.
Who should be aware of it?
Anyone who has an incorporated company in Poland.
(by company we mean incorporated legal person, like spólka z ogranoczoną odpowiedzialnością or spółka akcyjna, not being registered as sole trader / jednosoba działalność gospodarcza).
What is the issue?
Central Register of Beneficial Owners (https://crbr.podatki.gov.pl/) has been created. Companies and partnerships must file information about their beneficial owners to the register.
Deadline
If you start a new company, deadline to file the information is 7 working days after it is registered.
If your company has been registered before 13th of October, 2019, the deadline is 13th of July, 2020 (originally it was 13th of April, however it has been moved to the COVID-19 situation).
Beneficial owner
A beneficial owner is anyone who has significant control over a particular company.
Having particular percentage of share capital or voting rights automatically makes you beneficial owner. At the same time, specific arrangements may give somebody “significant control”, even if this person is not formally shareholder. The simplest example is somebody who controls the parent company of the Polish company.
Specific situations need to be analyzed case by case.
Updating information
If any changes regarding the beneficial ownership happens it must be filed within 7 working days after it is effective (remember: many changes are effective even before they are registered in KRS).
Penalties
Companies that do not file information to the CRBR within the deadline can be given fine up to PLN 1,000,000.00 (this is the highest possible penalty and much smaller penalties can be expected in minor cases).
If you need help with these issues, a lawyer of JWMS law firm will be happy to help you.
You can find more information in their original blog post here: https://jwms.pl/en/obligatory-disclosure-of-the-beneficial-owner/
You can contact the author of this post here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-marczy%C5%84ski-76b5a992/
