By the end of July 2026, the first entities subject to the Polish JPK CIT requirements will submit JPK_KR_PD files covering their accounting books. This deadline applies, in particular, to taxpayers from the first reporting group whose relevant tax or financial year began after 31 December 2024 and ended before 31 December 2025. The files must be prepared in accordance with the structure required by the Polish Ministry of Finance. What happens if a file is submitted after the deadline or contains errors?
JPK CIT is the commonly used name for Poland’s electronic reporting requirements for corporate income tax records. In practice, the obligation primarily involves submitting accounting books in the JPK_KR_PD structure and, where applicable, fixed-asset records in the JPK_ST_KR structure. The files must follow the logical structures published by the Polish Ministry of Finance and contain additional accounting and tax data. The obligation is being introduced in stages, beginning with Polish tax capital groups and taxpayers whose revenue for the preceding tax or financial year exceeded the equivalent of EUR 50 million.
By the end of July 2026, the first entities subject to the Polish JPK CIT requirements will submit JPK_KR_PD files covering their accounting books. This deadline applies, in particular, to taxpayers from the first reporting group whose relevant tax or financial year began after 31 December 2024 and ended before 31 December 2025. The files must be prepared in accordance with the structure required by the Polish Ministry of Finance. What happens if a JPK file is submitted after the deadline or contains errors?
The consequences should primarily be considered under the Polish Fiscal Penal Code (Kodeks karny skarbowy, “KKS”). Article 61a KKS provides for sanctions in the following situations:
- failure to submit the required JPK CIT file;
- submission of the file after the statutory deadline;
- submission of unreliable books; or
- submission of defective books.
Under Article 61a KKS, a breach of the obligation to transmit books to the competent Polish tax authority may result in:
- a fine of up to 240 daily rates where the books are not submitted or are submitted in an unreliable form; where the offence is considered to be a less serious case, the perpetrator may instead be fined for a fiscal misdemeanour;
- a fine for a fiscal misdemeanour where the books are submitted after the deadline or are defective.
These sanctions follow directly from Article 61a §§ 1–3 KKS.
What are unreliable books?
Books are considered unreliable if they do not reflect the actual state of affairs. This may include, for example, omitting invoices or deliberately recording them at incorrect amounts, resulting in understated revenue or overstated costs.
What are defective books?
Books are defective where they have not been maintained in accordance with the applicable legal requirements. In the Polish JPK CIT context, this may involve non-compliance with the Accounting Act or with the technical and substantive requirements applicable to the JPK_KR_PD structure.
Depending on the circumstances, defects may include missing or incorrectly assigned accounting or tax tags. They may also concern transaction descriptions that do not contain understandable information allowing the transaction to be identified, inconsistencies in the reported data, or missing information required by the applicable JPK_KR_PD structure. The Polish Ministry of Finance confirms that transaction descriptions must contain understandable text enabling the nature of the relevant entry to be identified.
Who may be held responsible for JPK CIT errors?
Liability under the KKS is personal. It is therefore borne by the natural person responsible for the company’s tax or financial matters rather than by the company itself under the fiscal penal provisions.
Depending on the internal allocation of duties and the circumstances of the case, responsibility may rest with management board members, chief accountants, finance directors or other individuals entrusted with the relevant tax-reporting obligations. Liability cannot, however, be attributed automatically solely on the basis of a person’s job title; the person’s actual responsibilities and involvement must be assessed in each case.
Can a penalty be avoided? Voluntary disclosure
Article 16 KKS provides for the institution of voluntary disclosure, known in Polish as czynny żal. A perpetrator of a fiscal offence or fiscal misdemeanour may avoid punishment if, after committing the prohibited act, they notify the competent enforcement authority and disclose the material circumstances of the act, including persons who cooperated in committing it.
A voluntary disclosure is not effective in every case. In particular, it will generally be ineffective if the authority already has clearly documented knowledge of the offence or if the disclosure is made after the authority has commenced an official action aimed at detecting it, such as verification activities, a search or an audit, unless that action provided no grounds for initiating proceedings. Where the act resulted in a reduction of a public-law liability, the outstanding amount must also be paid in full within the deadline set by the competent authority.
In the case of a late or omitted JPK CIT filing in Poland, the voluntary disclosure should therefore be submitted before the Polish authority independently identifies the breach and begins relevant official activities. The outstanding reporting obligation should also be completed without unnecessary delay. Whether the disclosure is effective must nevertheless be assessed against all the statutory conditions in Article 16 KKS; submitting it does not provide an automatic guarantee of immunity from punishment.
Correction of JPK CIT files – Ministry of Finance guidance
If a Polish taxpayer identifies formal or amount-related errors in a previously submitted JPK_KR_PD file, a corrected JPK CIT file should be submitted.
A correction of JPK_KR_PD should generally reproduce the complete dataset contained in the original file or in the most recently submitted correction. It should not be limited only to the individual entries being amended.
Where the original file was divided into separate reporting periods, the correction should cover the same partial period as the original file. If the change affects data reported for subsequent partial periods, the relevant later files should also be corrected.
If the correction concerns only the final partial period and does not affect earlier periods reported in separate files, the taxpayer may correct only the file for the final period of the financial year, provided that the requirements concerning the continuity and chronology of accounting entries remain satisfied.
Summary
Failure to submit a JPK CIT file in Poland, submitting it after the applicable deadline or transmitting unreliable or defective books may give rise to fiscal penal liability under Article 61a KKS. The maximum statutory sanction for failure to submit the books or for submitting unreliable books is a fine of up to 240 daily rates. Late submission and submission of defective books are punishable as fiscal misdemeanours.
Where a breach has already occurred, a voluntary disclosure under Article 16 KKS may allow the responsible individual to avoid punishment, but only if all statutory conditions are fulfilled. The disclosure should therefore be made before the Polish authorities have documented the breach or commenced relevant enforcement activities, and the outstanding filing obligation should be completed promptly.
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