PIT-4R - settlement of tax advances collected, submitted after the deadline

Entrepreneurs hiring employees should remember about the timely fulfillment of their obligations as employers. One of them is the payment of income tax for employees to the tax office and the preparation of the annual PIT-4R declaration.

Who is the payer?

Two basic concepts are used in the tax nomenclature:

• payer and
• taxpayer.

A payer is an entity on which an obligation has been imposed to make calculations and collect tax on taxpayers' remuneration on their basis. The payer of personal income tax is obliged to timely transfer the collected advances for the income tax on the remuneration of taxpayers to the tax office.

The payer is therefore the entity that acts as an intermediary between the taxpayer and the tax office in terms of settling liabilities on account of the revenues generated. The payer transfers the advances collected for the income tax for a third party. The payer is not a person who pays for himself, e.g. an entrepreneur running a sole proprietorship. If the taxpayer settles accounts directly with the tax office, he does not submit PIT-4R.

Who is required to collect income tax advances and submit PIT-4R

Depending on the basis for which income tax advances were paid, the obligation to submit PIT-4R may be:

• natural persons, legal persons and organizational units without legal personality,
• agricultural production cooperatives and others specified in the Act,
• pension authorities,
• organizational units of universities, research institutions,
• employment authorities,
• FGŚP,
• pre-trial detention centers and prisons,
• branches of the Military Housing Agency,
• social integration center,
• households employing helpers,
• natural persons running a business,
• bailiff or a substitute entity or entity.

The exact relationships that affect the obligation to issue a PIT-4R declaration are included in the Personal Income Tax Act.

Periodic tax payments for employees

During the tax year, an entrepreneur employing employees, whether under an employment contract or under civil law contracts, should pay monthly advances for income tax for these employees. The amount of advances paid depends mainly on the amount of the employee's remuneration. The deadline for paying the advance payment for a given month is the 20th day of the following month. There is no requirement to submit monthly declarations, however, it should be remembered that at the end of the year you will be required to prepare the annual PIT-4R declaration. During the year, the payer pays the calculated income tax advances for the employees. There is no obligation to make periodic declarations in this regard. On the basis of monthly calculations, a collective annual declaration on collected advance payments (PIT 4R) is created, which should be submitted to the Tax Office.

Annual tax return PIT-4R

Information on due advance payments for income tax for the given months is presented in the annual PIT-4R declaration. Only one PIT-4R declaration (regardless of the number of employees) should be submitted to the tax office. This document must include the sum of recipients and the sum of advances collected for them.

Example 1.

Mr. Artur ran a sole proprietorship for many years. This year, he decided to work with a new person on the basis of an employment contract. In the period of settling annual tax liabilities, unlike in previous years, he had to generate the PIT-4R declaration for the first time and submit it to the appropriate institution. This obligation resulted from the fact that Mr. Artur hired an employee during the year, on whose behalf, as an employer, he transferred advance income tax payments to the Tax Office.

In this declaration, the sum of advances due from all employees for a given month should be entered in each month. A person submitting a PIT-4R declaration should remember about the division of advances into the sources of their occurrence.

Example 2.

Advance payment for personal income tax, for remuneration in November, was collected in December. As a rule, the amount of the advance payment should be transferred to the Tax Office by 20 January. This advance is declared in PIT-4R as an advance due for December. Start a free 30-day trial period with no strings attached!

Deadline for submitting the PIT-4R declaration

The PIT-4R declaration for a given year is submitted to the tax office no later than January 31 of the following year. Note If the payer ceases to conduct business activity before the expiry of the time limits referred to in para. 1 Art. 42g u.p.d.o.f., in which case the obligation to send the annual tax calculation and information shall be at the latest on the day of cessation of business activity.

If the last day of the term falls on a Saturday or a public holiday, the last day of the term shall be the first business day following that date. PIT-4R for 2020 should be submitted by February 1, 2021 at the latest.

The form of submitting the PIT-4R declaration

The PIT-4R declaration should be submitted to the Tax Office in electronic form. Electronic PIT-4R should be confirmed with a qualified signature or, in the case of taxpayers of personal income tax, with authorization data. The currently organized system makes it impossible to submit such declarations in paper form.

PIT-4R declaration submitted after the deadline

Submitting the declaration after the statutory deadline, even one day after the deadline, is a tax offense, for which a fine may be imposed. Pursuant to the Act on Fiscal Penal Code, the sanction for such an act may take the form of a fine or even imprisonment. Act of September 10, 1999, Fiscal Penal Code
Art. 54. § 1. "A taxpayer who, while evading taxation, does not disclose to the competent authority the subject or base of taxation or does not submit a declaration, thus exposing the tax to depletion, shall be subject to a fine of up to 720 daily rates or imprisonment, or both penalties jointly". The amount of the daily rate is determined by the court having jurisdiction in this case. Act of September 10, 1999, Fiscal Penal Code
Art. 23. § 1. “When imposing a fine, the court determines the number of rates and the amount of one daily rate; unless the code provides otherwise, the lowest number of rates is 10, the highest - 720 ”.

Active regret is a way to avoid sanctions for failure to submit PIT-4R on time

Penalties for failure to submit the declaration within the time limit prescribed by the law can be avoided by relying on the institution of active regret. This means a voluntary declaration of the payer on the commission of a crime, submitted before the call from the tax office for explanations on the committed act. This solution enables the tax authorities to refrain from punishing the perpetrator who committed a prohibited act in the form of failure to submit a declaration on time.