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Michal Spychalski |
The Polish Ministry of Finance has announced proposed amendments to the VAT Act. The introduction of this package – according to the Ministry of Finance – will increase the effectiveness of the fight against VAT fraud. The new rules will primarily concern the domestic reverse charge mechanism, joint and several tax liability, as well as rules of VAT deduction in case of goods and services used for mixed purposes. The Ministry of Finance is planning to implement these amendments from January 2015. The domestic VAT reverse charge mechanism will be extended and will cover new products, such as mobile phones (including smartphones), portable computers (tablets, notebooks, laptops) and video game consoles. From 2015 reverse charge will also apply to raw gold and certain steel products whose characteristics are similar to products already covered by this mechanism. The domestic reverse charge will only apply if the purchaser is registered as the VAT taxpayer, and – in case of mobile phones – only if daily net amount of sale to one purchaser exceeded 20,000 PLN ($6,000).
The proposal also introduces a new reporting obligation. The suppliers of goods and services, in case of which VAT will be accounted according to the domestic reverse charge mechanism, will be required to submit to the tax office a statement listing such transactions.
The list of goods subject to joint and several tax liability mechanism will also be amended. According to this mechanism, which was introduced in Poland in October 2013, under certain circumstances purchasers of some goods (steel products, fuels, lubricants and raw gold) may be responsible for a supplier's VAT liabilities. The Ministry of Finance is planning to apply this mechanism also to raw silver and platinum. On the other hand, raw gold will be excluded as it will be covered by the domestic reverse charge mechanism.
The next part of the proposed amendments refers to rules of VAT deduction in case of goods and services used for mixed purposes; that is, goods and services used for purposes of activities subject to VAT and other activities. In particular, it will be possible to receive from the tax authorities binding confirmation that the method of calculating the VAT pro-rata applied by taxpayer is correct. Additionally, the Ministry of Finance will issue implementing regulations specifying possible methods of calculating VAT pro-rata.
This is still only the general draft of the proposal and a package of specific regulations will be announced later this year.
Michal Spychalski (Michal.spychalski@mddp.pl)
MDDP
Tel: +48 22 322 68 88
Website: www.mddp.pl
