Invoices only for receipts containing the contractor’s NIP

The amendment to the VAT Act, which went to the President’s for signing, assumes that in the case of a recorded sale using a cash register confirmed by a fiscal receipt, an invoice for a VAT taxable person can only be issued if the receipt confirming the sale includes the NIP number.

The new regulations also provide for sanctions related to issuing invoices for receipts without NIP. In this case, the tax authority may set an additional tax liability in the amount corresponding to 100% of the amount of tax shown on this invoice. In relation to natural persons who are liable for tax or fiscal offenses for the same deed, the additional tax liability is not determined.

The above provisions do not apply to taxpayers providing personal taxi services.

The purpose of introducing the above changes is to eliminate the practice of „buying” or „collecting” receipts by natural persons conducting business activity and being at the same time taxpayers of VAT from private persons. Usually, such a procedure takes place in shops (mainly with construction materials). Then the entrepreneur – a taxpayer with a „obtained” receipt goes to the cash register and asks for an invoice for his company based on the receipt presented by him. In this way, it has additional costs and VAT input.

The legislator’s idea is noble, but the question remains whether the adopted measures are adequate to the phenomenon described. In practice, very few cash registers additionally have the option of entering the contractor’s NIP on the receipt. Therefore, it will largely eliminate the possibility of inviting taxpayers to issue invoices to previously issued receipts. The changes are to come into effect on April 1, 2020.

One should also pay attention to the fact that this year there is another change in the area of ​​record keeping by means of cash registers. Under the previous Act amending the VAT and the new Regulation on cash registers, a gradual exchange of existing cash registers for online cash registers, the obligation to read the cashier’s account with the principle of their servicing and legal consequences connected with it, which must be confirmed in writing by the user according to a specific formula, change of letters rates.

Another change awaits in the queue in the parliament, which may be important for taxpayers: a mandatory split payment for some transactions and the exchange of VAT rate matrixes.

From 1 April 2020, it will be possible to issue invoices only to receipts that contain the contractor’s NIP. It may be connected with inconveniences or in the case when the cash register does not have such a possibility, the lack of possibility for issuing such an invoice.