Amendments to the Act of 11 March 2004 on tax on goods and services (Journal of Laws of 2004, item 535), to prevent tax fraud, introduce a new rule that the invoice can only be issued to a receipt containing the buyer's tax identification number.
The issuing of invoices for transactions on the basis of the receipt on which the buyer’s NIP number is missing shall bear the penalty imposed on the seller or service provider.
If the entrepreneur fails to comply with the new regulations and despite the lack of a buyer's NIP number on the receipt, he will issue an invoice, he will be punished with an additional tax liability of 100% VAT, which has been shown on the invoice.
Subject to the condition that sanctions will not be imposed on entrepreneurs who after 1 January 2019 they will issue invoices to receipts issued before 1 January 2019, i.e.
receipts that have not yet been included in the buyer's NIP, thus maintaining compliance with Article 106i Act of 11 March 2004 on tax on goods and services (Journal of Laws of 2004, item 535) in which the time is specified for issuing an invoice to the receipt.
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The amendment will eliminate cases of invoices on the basis of receipts left by the purchaser and eliminate situations where, on the basis of receipts collected from other companies, they request the invoices to be issued to the non-purchaser. Unfair traders after receipt of the invoice, deduct VAT and reduce the amount of PIT, thereby lowering VAT and PIT tax obligations.
With the new rules, the government wants to prevent empty invoices. This is one from numerous changes that are planned to counter tax fraud.
Author: Paweł Boś, law student at the Kozminski Academy in Warsaw, employee of Russell Bedford