Court supports tax authorities in dispute with Atlantis

The Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) ruled on Friday that the tax authorities had the right to question the accounts of publicly-listed construction company Atlantis. The case relates to a 1997 report on the Polish warehousing market, for which Atlantis paid Liechtenstein-based Eurosys zl.330,000. Atlantis included the amount in its income statement as costs, claiming that the report helped it make a profit in several deals involving the purchase and resale of real estate. However, since the report was only five pages long and the information contained in it was readily available in real-estate magazines, the tax inspectors concluded that the amount of money spent on it was exorbitant. The NSA said in its ruling that it could find no relationship between the expenditure and the resulting revenues of the company, and that it therefore supported the tax authorities' stance. (Gazeta Wyborcza, Nov. 17-18, p. 35) T.J.