Budżet a normy prawa podatkowego
Budget and tax law norms

Summary/Abstract: Background: This article is devoted to selected legal and factual relations between the budget and tax law norms concerning the collection of budget revenues. The subject of the research is, above all, the legal norms of the Public Finance Act, the Budget Act and consequently the budget itself, and the norms of tax law. The actual impact of the budget’s implementation on the appli¬cation of tax law is also examined. Research purpose: The main purpose of the article is to determine and assess, against the back-ground of the legal nature of the budget and the characteristics of tax law norms, the practice of applying tax law norms, and in particular to answer the question whether budgetary needs have a real impact on the application of tax law norms and what this impact is about. Methods: The aims of the article determine its structure and research method. Defining legal relations requires making determinations regarding the legal nature of the budget and the charac-teristics of tax law norms. The basic method in this case is the analysis of the normative material and the views of the literature. Then, it was researched how the law is applied in this area, by referencing case law and literature dealing with practice. Conclusions: The state budget is included in the Budget Act and constitutes its most important, though not the only, element. Taxes play the most important role among budget revenues. They account for over 90% of total revenues of the Polish budget and are collected in accordance with tax law. Tax law norms define the structure of the tax and thus determine its amount. The amounts of revenues included in the budget are only forecasts and “the inclusion in the state budget of revenues from specific sources or expenditure for specific purposes shall not constitute the basis for claims or obligations of the state towards third parties, or claims of these persons against the state” (The Public Finance Act, Article 51). Practice shows that increasing the practical importance of the revenue side of the budget beyond the limits set by the Public Finance Act and striving to collect the highest amount of revenues often means violation of tax law. In such a situation, the taxpayers’ rights are also violated. Exam¬ples in this regard are indicated in this article. Breaches of tax law by tax authorities aimed at maximizing budget revenues on a larger scale lead to many unfavorable phenomena. First of all, there is a violation of the fundamental principle of the rule of law expressed in Art. 7 of the Polish Constitution, according to which “organs of public authority act on the basis and within the limits of the law”. Moreover, there is a reduction or even loss of taxpayers’ trust in the tax authorities, or more broadly in the state. The principle of tax certainty is also infringed. There is also no doubt that violation of the law by tax authorities also leads to an increase in financial and social costs of the functioning of the tax system and disrupts the functioning thereof.

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