Note: translated from Polish!
The Provincial Administrative Court in Gdańsk, in its judgment of 5 August 2025 (I SA/Gd 375/25), once again confirmed a fairly strict approach to the deadline for reporting an inheritance or donation, on which the possibility of benefiting from the exemption from inheritance and gift tax provided for in Article 4a(1) of the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act depends.
The case concerned a taxpayer who, after her husband’s death, reported the acquisition of the inheritance after the expiry of the six-month period. Despite the argument that it was only after some time that she acquired full knowledge of the assets, the court found that there were no prerequisites for the application of the exception from the Act. In the opinion of the Provincial Administrative Court, the six-month deadline is of a mandatory nature, and therefore, as a rule, it cannot be reinstated, even in the event of failure to comply for subjective reasons.
It is worth recalling that the provision of Article 4a(2) of the Civil Procedure Act provides a kind of lifeline, as it allows for the notification of the acquisition after the deadline if the heir, for reasons beyond his control, only later learned about the acquisition of property or property rights. However, as the court emphasized, this provision refers to exceptional situations: when the heir objectively could not have been aware of the fact of inheritance, e.g. when he did not know about the ongoing inheritance proceedings or the existence of a specific asset. However, it does not include cases where the heir had the opportunity to act, but did not fulfil the obligation on time.
In the case under review, the court held that the applicant – being a participant in the inheritance proceedings from her mother-in-law, which resulted in her husband’s assets – could, with due diligence, determine the full extent of the inherited property before the expiry of six months. Therefore, the lack of such diligence does not justify the application of the statutory exception from the above-mentioned article of the Act.
This judgment once again reminds us how important it is to meet deadlines in tax cases concerning inheritances and donations. Tax exemption for relatives is not unconditional – the legislator links it to a specific reporting obligation. So, in practice, are the heirs sufficiently aware of these obligations? Is the statutory six months a realistic deadline in the case of complicated facts, where determining assets requires time and cooperation of several people?
The answer to the above questions is not always obvious, often the legal assessment depends on the facts and the actions taken by the taxpayer. If in doubt, it is worth considering applying for an individual tax ruling to the head of the relevant tax office or seeking advice from a lawyer specializing in this field or a licensed tax advisor.