Abstract

The article discusses a very topical issue of the criminal commercial law – cross-border carousel fraud. Following the progressive socio-economic transformations and Poland’s accession to the European Union, Poland has been threatened with a new, so-far as a rule unprecedented phenomenon of carousel crime, which consists in carrying out virtual intra-Community transactions that imitate real commercial transactions in order to get a refund of VAT under false pretenses. The article briefly presents the origin of the crime, describes the carousel crime mechanism with a graphic presentation of a crime scheme example. Moreover, it describes selected aspects of criminal and tax liability of perpetrators presenting the dominating lines of judgments issued by common and administrative courts. It also identifies ways of combatting carousel fraud, e.g. by the reverse charge mechanism. The article with a concise conclusion of the author.