Describing the supply of goods and the transport service, it must be noted that these issues are regulated In the Act dated 11 March 2004 (Journal of Laws of 2004, item 535) on tax on goods and services. When determining when transport costs increase the taxable amount of the supply of goods, it is necessary to distinguish two cases.
Another is when the delivery of goods and transport costs constitute a comprehensive provision, i.e. the supply of goods is closely linked to the transport and another when the transport of goods is an independent service.
In the first where a definition of comprehensive provision needs to be established and the rate at which the whole service should be taxed.
It follows from the caselaw of the Court of Justice of the European Union that benefits must be regarded as comprehensive when, from an economic point of view, several obligations are so closely linked that their separation would be artificial.
Therefore, if the transport service is not an objective for the customer itself in itself and for the proper use of the entire benefit, this may be considered as ancillary to the main benefit. This is confirmed by the individual interpretation of the Director of the Tax Chamber in Katowice dated 13 January 2015, (IBPP1/443-978/14/BM), in which it was found that:
„(…) In principle, any provision for the purposes of taxing goods and services should be treated as separate and independent, but where several benefits cover from an economic point of view one service, this service should not be artificially shared for tax purposes. Therefore, from an economic point of view, services should not be shared for tax purposes when they are created one a comprehensive service covering several ancillary services.’
When determining which rate is covered by transport costs in the case of the supply of goods, it is worth noting that the taxable amount includes everything which constitutes the payment received in return for the supply of goods or services from the buyer, the customer or the person third in connection with the goods or services supplied.
Problems arise when the supply concerns items subject to different VAT rates. In this case, the above-mentioned interpretation of the individual Director of the Tax Chamber in Katowice stated that:
„The provisions of the VAT Act do not give rise to the direct taxation of transport costs where the subject matter one supplies are taxed at different VAT rates. Purpose analysis Article 29a(1) The VAT Act indicates that in such cases transport costs should increase proportionally the taxable amount of individual goods/products taxed at different rates.’
A separate issue is the price change after the invoice is issued. The provisions on the tax on goods and services do not provide for the possibility of issuing several invoices documenting the same transaction. Consequently, in an individual interpretation, the Director of the Tax Chamber in Katowice dated 23 September 2015, (IBPP4/4512-192/15/PK) concluded that:
„After the transaction has been carried out and the actual price to be paid by the counterparties to the Applicant has been determined, the taxpayer must issue an adjustment invoice in which the price increase in question will be taken into account. Consequently, there is no basis for issuing an additional invoice for the amount by which that price has been increased.’
In summary, additional costs shall be included in the tax base only if they are directly linked to the activity for which the tax base is established and are directly collected by the supplier of the goods.
If the benefit is comprehensive and the transport costs fall into the taxable amount of the supply of the goods, they shall be taxed at the VAT rate applicable to the goods. Where the supply of goods is subject to a reduced rate of taxation (e.g.
8%), this transport costs are included in the price of this product, so we also tax them at a reduced rate. In the case of the supply of goods covered by different VAT rates, transport costs should increase proportionally the taxable amount of the individual goods/products.
In addition, it is worth remembering that the change in the price as soon as the invoice is issued should result in a corresponding change in the VAT base and a correction invoice being issued.
In the second the costs of transport as a supply independent of the supply of goods should be taxed and documented separately. This is confirmed by the individual interpretation of the Director of the Tax Chamber in Warsaw, who dated 25 March 2015 (IPPP1/443-1500/14-2/M) stated that:
„if the sale of the goods includes a supply without indicating the transport service as a necessary element of the supply in question and the seller additionally offers a transport service for separate payment, that service shall constitute a separate service (...) Transport costs should therefore be treated as separate services which should not increase the taxable amount of the goods to be supplied.’
In summary, transport costs as an independent service should be taxed separately by applying the appropriate VAT rate. In addition, they must also be documented in a separate item or issuing a new VAT invoice.