Temporary management of an enterprise after the death of an entrepreneur is associated with the need to fulfill tax obligations imposed on a given enterprise, including personal income tax. The Act on the succession management of an individual’s enterprise and other facilities related to business succession states directly in Article 49 that: „A successor enterprise is an organizational unit without legal personality, being a taxpayer” and refers to the provisions defining the taxpayer from several other acts (including: PIT, CIT and VAT, etc.). This means that the taxpayer is the enterprise, not the manager or owners.
At the time of the entrepreneur’s death, the successor enterprise takes over the tax rights and obligations of this entrepreneur. Therefore, it is not obliged to submit a PIT declaration for the deceased entrepreneur. For tax purposes, it uses the deceased entrepreneur’s NIP. A successor enterprise must keep books either in the form of a tax book of income and expenses or in the form of accounting books. They should enable the determination of income (loss), tax base and the amount of tax due for the tax year, including the reporting period, and should also include in the records of fixed assets and intangible assets and legal rights the information necessary to calculate the amount of depreciation write-offs. On the day the inherited enterprise commences its business activity, a list of assets included in it should be prepared. During the period of business activity conducted by the inherited enterprise, it is also a payer of advance payments for personal income tax, collected from the salaries of employees and contractors. It is subject to obligations regarding the calculation, collection and transfer of advance payments for tax to the appropriate authority. Until the end of the tax year in which the entrepreneur died, the inherited enterprise continues the method of taxation according to the form chosen by the deceased (e.g. tax card). In the next tax year, the inherited enterprise may change the form of PIT taxation chosen by the deceased entrepreneur and choose the form of taxation on the same principles as apply to natural persons. An inherited enterprise may reduce its income by the loss incurred, including the loss that was incurred but not deducted by the deceased entrepreneur. The same applies to expenses incurred for research and development. In the case of tax depreciation, there is a continuation – the successor administrator takes into account the amount of deductions and the depreciation method chosen by the deceased enterprise.