By the middle of last year the situation was quite clear: when you sold an office building, a shopping centre or a warehouse you needed to pay VAT of 23 pct. Things took a rather more complicated turn when the tax authorities started to interpret property sales as selling an enterprise liable to a tax levy on civil law transactions of 2 pct and suspended the VAT rebate to property buyers. Furthermore, there have been some reports from people in the sector that the tax offices were even questioning tax decisions retrospectively. Such a situation has caused havoc and injected a dose of insecurity into the Polish commercial property market. “The latest interpretation of the revenue office of the tax on commercial property sales surprised developers and investors involved in trading properties on the Polish market,” explains Magdalena Ćwik-Burszewska, the head of tax at HB Reavis Poland.
Good data, bad moods
The investment market data for the last year are, however, excellen