A penalty for digitalization, a reward for innovation? What connects the digital tax with the R&D relief?

The draft act of 31 July 2026 on the compensatory tax on certain services introduces a solution more broadly referred to as the Digital Services Tax (DST). The new levy is to cover the largest entities providing selected digital services in Poland – primarily in the area of targeted advertising, multi-sided online platforms and the transfer of user data for consideration.

Main assumptions:

• the tax is to amount to 3%, however it will not apply to every business operating online,
• under the draft, it is to apply to entities or a consolidated group whose worldwide revenues in the previous settlement period exceeded EUR 1 billion, and whose taxable revenues generated in Poland exceeded PLN 25 million.

These criteria are to be applied irrespective of the entity’s tax residence or registered office.

It is not, however, the rate or the thresholds themselves that may prove to be the most interesting element of the new regulations. From the perspective of technology entities, particular significance attaches to the way in which the draft treats research and development activity.

Why can R&D genuinely reduce the burden of the new tax?

The draft assumes that the calculated DST may be reduced by, among other things, tax-deductible costs incurred on R&D activity within the scope specified in Article 18d(2) of the CIT Act. If the total value of the reductions provided for in the act exceeds the amount of the tax, the DST will amount to PLN 0.

R&D costs may soon acquire an entirely new significance. Until now associated mainly with the possibility of benefiting from a tax relief, in the light of the proposed provisions on the digital tax they may become one of the factors affecting the level of future fiscal burdens. This means that the proper identification of R&D activity takes on a strategic dimension.

What should be verified now?

It will be crucial to determine which expenses actually fall within the scope of the costs indicated in Article 18d(2) of the CIT Act. In the digital sector this is not always obvious – the boundary between R&D activity and ongoing product development, system maintenance or routine software changes may be blurred.

For this reason, for entities potentially covered by the DST, even greater significance will attach to the method of identifying R&D projects, the recording of costs, the allocation of technical teams’ working time and the documentation confirming the nature of the work carried out.

In practice, therefore, the draft may mean that R&D ceases to be solely an element of the CIT settlement and also becomes a material component of the DST calculation. For the largest digital companies, the question will thus not come down merely to whether they exceed the thresholds of the new tax, but also to whether they are able to correctly identify and document the costs of their R&D activity.

The home stretch before 2027

Although the draft act is still at the legislative stage, the direction of the proposed changes is already visible. Under the current assumptions, the new provisions are to enter into force on 1 January 2027, which is why it is worth taking a look now at the processes related to the identification and documentation of R&D costs.