A likely change of government in Poland, or a postponement of the implementation of the ViDA package at the European Union level, and on the other hand, a draft regulation adapting SAF-T files to new e-invoicing solutions. What does the future hold for the obligatory e-invoicing (Pol. KSeF)? Will it be postponed?
Current state
In accordance with the Act of 16 June 2023 amending the Value Added Tax Act and certain other acts signed by the President of the Republic of Poland, mandatory e-invoicing will enter into force for most entities, as a rule, from 1 July 2024, and VAT-exempt entities will apply six months later, i.e. from 1 January 2025.
On 18 October this year, the Minister of Finance published a draft regulation on the detailed scope of data contained in tax returns and records in the field of value added tax.
The draft regulation proposes changes to adapt SAF-T files to the changes resulting from the planned entry into force of the mandatory KSeF. The most important assumptions of this project include those affecting invoices placed in the registration part, which will be subject to markings by:
- assigned to them KSeF number;
- “OFF” tag if they were issued during a failure, unavailability of the KSeF or offline mode on the taxpayer’s side;
- “BFK” tag if they have been issued outside the KSeF due to the lack of such an obligation.
In addition, the content of the regulation has been adapted to the changes concerning the deadline for VAT refunds, i.e. the basic refund period has been shortened from 60 to 40 days.
On 27 November 2019, the Draft of the Decree of the Minister of Finance amending the regulation on issuing invoices was published, thus adapting the provisions of the regulation to the solutions introduced, m.in. in the scope of changing the components of an invoice issued by an exempt taxpayer by adding a mandatory NIP number.
On the same day, the expected Draft of 23 November 2019 of the Decree of the Minister of Finance on the use of the National e-Invoicing System was also published. A detailed discussion of this Regulation is a topic for a separate article, it is only worth mentioning that it regulates such issues as:
- types of entitlements to use the KSeF;
- the methods of sending, changing or receiving them, as well as the template of the notification of their sending or receipt;
- methods of authentication of entities using the KSeF;
- the scope of data that enables access to a structured invoice in the KSeF;
- the method of marking structured invoices made available to the buyer outside the KSeF and during a KSeF failure.
In Poland, legislative work on the implementation of the KSeF is in full swing, but what does it look like from the perspective of the European Union?
EU postpones ViDA package
When amending tax regulations, especially harmonized ones, it should be remembered that Polish legislation does not operate in a vacuum. The same applies to KSeF. And while Poland is one of the pioneers of this solution, this kind of system is already in place in Italy. Steps to implement similar solutions have also been taken, m.in, in France, Germany and Romania. However, it is not only individual Member States that see the advantages of introducing this type of digitalization of VAT systems in their jurisdictions. As VAT is, as we have mentioned, a harmonized tax, the EU authorities are also working hard to introduce e-invoicing throughout the European Union.
This is reflected in the package of solutions proposed under the project “VAT in Digital Age (ViDA). Originally, its individual elements were to be implemented as early as January 2024, but finally, due to the protracted legislative process, in October this year it was proposed to postpone it by a year. At the moment, if the conclusions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament and the European Parliament itself, where the postponement was voted on 22 November this year, are confirmed by the Council of the European Union – the implementation of the VIDA package, including the gradual implementation of the universal e-invoicing system – will start only from 1 January 2025 and will last until the end of 2028. In other words, the European Union is postponing the implementation of mandatory e-invoicing throughout the EU, and what does Poland say about it?
New Government
When discussing the obligatory KSeF, it is impossible to ignore the issue of the recent parliamentary elections, in which the (then) opposition won the majority of seats in both the Sejm and the Senate. Such results mean a likely change of government in Poland. Could this affect the postponement of the entry into force of e-invoicing? At the moment, the Ministry of Finance indicates that preparations for its implementation are still ongoing. At the same time, during a recent press conference, Inspector Mariusz Gojny, Deputy Minister of Finance, Deputy Head of the National Tax Administration, pointed out that thanks to the implementation of this solution, the state budget will gain about PLN 10 billion from VAT alone over 10 years. Taking into account the above, i.e. the high advancement of work on the implementation of the KSeF and the not without significance fiscal aspect, in our opinion we should not expect a postponement of the entry into force of mandatory e-invoicing.
To sum up, in our opinion, in the near future, after the new government is formed, we should expect the immediate publication of a proposal for a package of implementing regulations for the KSeF, including a regulation regulating technical issues in the field of QR codes. At the same time, due to the advancement of work on the KSeF, fiscal aspects and, at the moment, postponed, but in the future mandatory e-invoicing throughout the European Union, we should not expect the entry into force of mandatory e-invoicing from July 2024 to be postponed to a later date.
