Ex-PM Tusk questioned in Polish tax probe

Marcin Horała, an MP for the country’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, said that the inquiry now aimed to question the former premier again.

Tusk on Monday told the parliamentary probe that in 2007-2015, Poland did not stand out among other European countries in terms of failings in collecting VAT. He claimed that the parliamentary inquiry was politically motivated.

Tusk became president of the European Council, a top EU office, after his period as Poland’s prime minister.

The Polish parliamentary inquiry led by Horała got under way after the lower house of the country's parliament last July voted to launch an investigation into suspected irregularities.

Horała said at the time that a probe was needed to check former finance ministry officials and others who oversaw the VAT collection system under the Civic Platform-led government, which governed Poland from 2007 to 2015.

The special parliamentary commission’s first witness, Witold Modzelewski, one of the architects of Poland’s value-added tax system and deputy finance minister from 1992 to 1996, told investigators in September last year that the so-called VAT gap ballooned in Poland between 2007 and 2015, leading to billions of zlotys in losses for public coffers.

Poland lost hundreds of billions in uncollected taxes under its previous Civic Platform-led government, according to a report released by a tax advisory firm run by Modzelewski.

(pk)

Source: IAR