Poland extends SAF-T to bank accounts
- Jun 2, 2017 | Richard Asquith
Poland has proposed extend its existing Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) VAT transaction reporting obligations to include daily bank transactions. The proposed implementation date is 1 September 2017. The obligation to prepare and submit the submissions would fall on banks – not the tax payer directly.
However, non-resident Polish VAT registered businesses would have to prepare and submit the SAF-T submission themselves if they are not using a Polish bank account.
SAF-T is an international reporting standard for the exchange of tax-related transaction data between tax authorities and companies. It is an XML-based format enabling the efficient transfer of data. It was developed at the OECD, and has been introduced in 10 European countries so far. Aside from helping governments produce accurate tax assessments, it helps in the detection of VAT fraud – a €60bn issue in the EU.
The proposed Polish SAF-T file would include details of all payments, including: bank account numbers; name and tax ID of both parties; date and time of payment; amounts and any currency conversion; and bank account balance post transaction.
Poland introduced SAF-T from 1 July 2016 for: sales and purchase invoices; stock movements; and general ledger. All VAT payers (over >10 employees; >€2m annual revenues) are required to submit files every reporting period with their VAT return. Poland is the only country with regular mandatory SAF-T reporting so far.
