Comments on the harmfulness of the construction of perfect concurrence of a tax offence and a criminal offence – from a procedural perspective

Abstract

The paper addresses the highly controversial problem, both in theory and in practice, of the confluence of a tax offence and a crime. The author considers this construction as harmful and violating the ne bis in idem principle. Pointing to the view, dominant in case law, that the rules of exclusion of plurality of assessments apply only in the case of a coincidence of provisions of an act, while they do not apply in the case of an ideal coincidence of offences referred to in Article 8 § 1 of the Fiscal Penal Code, the author points to its negative consequences in the procedural perspective. They manifest themselves primarily in the possibility of conducting criminal proceedings twice against a person recognised as the perpetrator of a prohibited act realising the statutory attributes of a prohibited act stipulated both in the Fiscal Penal Code and in another criminal law. This may have particularly negative consequences for persons who admit to having committed a tax offence only in order to benefit from the institution of abandoning the punishment of the perpetrator and thus end the proceedings against them as soon as possible. In turn, such persons may not only be taxpayers or managers of taxpayers that are organisational units, but also accountants or tax advisors.