Finance Ministry rules out 0% VAT on healthcare services

2010-03-10

It is not possible to scrap the VAT exemption for healthcare services in Poland and to replace it with the zero rate, as it would contravene EU regulations, deputy finance minister Maciej Grabowski said in a letter to Maciej Hamankiewicz, president of the Supreme Doctors’ Council (NRL).
The firm stance is a blow for private healthcare providers in Poland, who have long been calling for such a change.
As Pharma Poland News reported, in May 2009 the National Association of Non-Public Hospitals (OSSN) warned that the exemption was the single most important barrier impeding investment in private healthcare in Poland, because it made providers unable to deduct the VAT on purchases of medical equipment.
The exemption from VAT of private healthcare services is meant to reduce their price for the patient, and applies across the EU. Agnieszka Szpara, CEO of Medicover, last year suggested another solution, namely to exempt from VAT companies that act as suppliers of healthcare providers.
In the letter, Grabowski also reiterated the ministry’s intention to require doctors to install cash registers.