Wpływ mechanizmu odwrotnego obciążenia na działalność małych i średnich przedsiębiorstw z branży budowlanej
Impact of the Reverse Charge on the Activity of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Construction Industry

Summary/Abstract: The reason for introducing the reverse charge mechanism in the construction industry were observed irregularities in the field of value-added tax (VAT) settlements. The purpose of the article is to analyse the essence of the reverse VAT mechanism as an instrument to combat tax fraud and evaluate it from three points of view: construction of tax regulations and tax risk in relation to their application by the enterprise; a sector in which the reverse charge mechanism was used; and the small and medium-sized enterprise sector that provides construction services covered by the reverse charge mechanism. The article uses the method of structured interviews with owners of small and medium-sized enterprises from the construction industry. The entrepreneurs’ responses allowed the author to provide a general outline of problems in the settlement of construction services after the introduction of the reverse charge mechanism. The article uses a critical analysis of legal acts regulating the functioning of the reverse charge mechanism. The legislative amendment regarding the collection of tax on transactions related to construction services was imprecise, among others, due to the lack of a definition of the subcontractor. The legislator, seeing the scale of the problems and the ineffectiveness of the legislative change, after less than two years, replaced the reverse charge with an obligatory split payment system.

• Details
• Contents