Unpaid sureties between related parties

As explained by Maciej Urbański of Thedy & Partners, according to the position expressed by the applicant, income from gratuitous benefits arises once at the date of the benefit. Thus, the taxpayer will be obliged to recognise revenue on this account only once, in the year of receiving the benefit. This obligation is independent of the duration of the benefit.
The authority agreed with the applicant’s position that income from a gratuitous benefit should be recognised once at the time of its receipt, i.e. in the tax year in which the benefit was provided. Furthermore, the authority stated that: ‘The conclusion of an annex to the agreement concerning the extension of the security period does not affect the value of the gratuitous benefit […]’.
However, the director of the KIS in the interpretation did not lean on the method of remuneration for the surety, which, as a rule, is a percentage fee calculated on the sum of the surety.
Thus, the approach presented by the authority may raise some practical doubts. These mainly concern issues related to calculating the appropriate value of the ‘remuneration’ of such a surety, which may, for instance, relate to securing an amount which is variable over time or be granted in a foreign currency and be dependent on exchange rate fluctuations.