Regional tax offices have opened investigations into an increasingly popular type of store known as ‘Dopalacze.pl’ or ‘Smart Drug store.’

Tax agents are to determine if the product that the stores carry is legal and which taxation category they fall under.

‘Smart drugs’ are a psychoactive herbal substance that, when consumed, are meant to mimic the effects of various narcotics. Poland’s parliament already passed a law outlawing several of the substances, but the stores have not disappeared from the market because producers have changed the ingredients to be in accordance with the law. The Health Ministry has pledged to continue the fight to ban the substances.

A spokesperson for the Finance Ministry, Magdalena Kobos, highlighted the fact that banning the sale of ‘smart drugs’ does not lie within the competencies of the ministry, but full tax audits can be done to check the legality of the stores. Kobos added that a similar audit of 40 such stores took place in January and the audit turned up about 1 million zloty (about 250,000 euro) in unpaid taxable income.

“We have noticed dynamic development in stores selling these ‘smart drugs’ since the last audit. From the point of view that this sort of trade is in an area considered ‘elevated risk,’ we feel the need to roll out an audit,” stated Kobos.

The audit is meant to cover 115 sales points. Kobos added that the tax inspectors will be informing other agencies (for example the State Sanitary Control or customs officials) if anything suspicious is noted. (mmj)

Tvp.info