“H-trademark S.A.” applied for a ruling on the tax rules governing a business restructuring where trademarks were transferred to another group company and licensed back – whether Polish arm’s length provisions would apply to the transaction.
The company was of the opinion that Polish arm’s length provision (article 11) would not apply, since the arrangement was covered by special Polish provisions related to financial leasing (article 17b-g).
Judgement of the Court
The Court found that the Polish arm’s length provisions applied to the transaction.
Excerpts
“In the present case, the legal problem boils down to the correct identification of the nature of the norms arising from Article 11 of the A.p.d.o.p. and its relationship with the provisions on leasing raised by the applicant (Articles 17b – 17g of the A.p.d.o.p.). Indeed, the applicant takes the view that the leasing provisions themselves introduce derogations from market conditions and that, consequently, it is not possible to examine certain activities governed by the leasing provisions on the basis of the criteria provided for in Article 11 of the A.p.d.o.p.”
“Therefore, it should be stated that the norm of Article 11 of the A.l.t.d.o.p. constitutes lex specialis in relation to the norms concerning taxation of leasing agreements (Article 17a et seq. of the A.l.d.o.p.). It may therefore also be applied in the case concerning taxation of such agreements. Thus, the Court does not share the view of the Appellant Company that it is the provisions concerning the leasing agreement that constitute lex specialis in relation to Article 11 of the discussed Act.
It is also of no significance for the position of the Court that the agreement presented in the description of the future event is not a commonly occurring agreement, and therefore, as the appellant claims, it will not be possible to make determinations on the basis of Article 11 of the A.l.t.d.o.p. This is because the very demonstration that the price would have been different if certain connections on the basis of the aforementioned provision had not occurred is already an element of establishing the facts and conducting tax proceedings in a specific case. Meanwhile, the subject of the present proceedings, was the answer to the question whether the aforementioned provision is excluded in the case of taxation of leasing agreements.
In addition, it should be noted that, contrary to the assertions in the application, it was not in the description of the future event, but in the position presented by the party that it stated that: “(…) the initial value of the rights to be used will be determined on the basis of a valuation prepared by an independent entity and will therefore correspond to their market value”.”