Marcin Rzasa
Sources of revenues in the personal income tax - selected problems
Summary
The subject of this article is to discuss selected problems regarding the sources of revenues in the personal income tax. The author begins the analysis of the statutory catalogue of sources of revenues by referring to the definition of the revenues included in the Personal Income Tax Act. The conducted analysis encompasses three technical problems. The first one concerns the insufficient precision of the terminology of the Act as regards the sources of revenues in the personal income tax. The second issue refers to the possibility of qualifying as revenues from non-agricultural business activity the categories of revenues which are simultaneously characterised by the legislator as falling within the separate sources of revenues. The third problem is about interpretative doubts regarding the possibility to include in the non-agricultural business activity the revenues from money capitals and property rights. The need for the analysis of this issue results directly from the second issue. In fact the made analysis is the answer to the question about the possibility of applying the criterion of the connection of the revenue with the business activity in the case of revenues from money capitals and of property rights.
Recapitulating the article, the author points at the primary importance of the problem of categorizing given income to the specific source of revenues and of the tendencies in this respect. It is the author’s opinion that the problems indicated in the article stem from the deficiencies in the precision of the legislator in the construction of legal norms resolving the issue of the sources of revenues, and that they do not result directly from the construction of the tax. It was judged advisable to initiate works on the statutory separation of the taxation of personal income and of business income, respectively.