According to article 26 section 1 of Polish act on corporate income tax, Polish entities making payments for: interest, copyright or related rights, rights to inventive designs, trademarks or ornamental designs, including from the sale of those rights, from compensation for disclosure of a secret of a recipe or production process, for use or right to use an industrial device, including means of transport, a commercial device or a scientific device, for information associated with industrial, commercial or scientific experience (know-how), are obliged, as tax payers, to collect lump-sum corporate income tax in amount of 20% from these payments (the tax is calculated from the income).

At the same time, according to article 26 section 1c of the aforementioned act, the entities making payments, can exercise a tax exemption, provided that the consignee of these incomes proves its seat for tax purposes with a residency certificate.

There are three basic requirements which a document should fulfill to be regarded as a residency certificate:

1. Firstly, each residency certificate should be issued by the competent tax authorities,
2.  Secondly, the certificate should specify the place of tax residence,

Lastly, the document, i.e., the residency certificate, should have a date of issuing and a signature or signatures of persons  entitled to act on behalf of the tax authority which issued this document.