Poland monthly SAF-T July 2016

Jun 5, 2016 | Richard Asquith

Poland is to require all large VAT registered businesses to submit monthly Standard Audit Files for Tax (SAF-T) from 1 July 2016. The obligation will be extended to all VAT registered businesses by 2018.

The previous plan was to introduce the obligation to be able to produce SAF-T files on demand only.

Polish SAF-T requirements

The monthly filing deadline will the 25^th of the month following the reporting month. This includes tax payers filing VAT returns on a quarterly basis - who must nevertheless submit their SAF-T reports monthly. The report should include:

All accounting transactions in the ledgers
Bank statements
VAT transactions, including invoices
Stock movement documentation e.g. invoices and GNR's.

Standard Audit File for Tax

SAF-T is a standarised computer format, developed by the OECD, for the electronic exchange of tax and accounting information with the tax authorities. So far in the EU it has been adopted by: Portugal; Luxembourg; Austria; Lithuania and France. Poland is the latest country, starting next month.

The aim is enable tax authorities to collect complete accounting records in a way that they can interrogate using analytical software to determine tax assessments, and identify any potential VAT fraud.

This new requirement excludes companies which maintain their accounts in manual, non-compuetrised format.

Phased introduction for small businesses

Small companies (<250 employees or <€50m annual turnover) are exempted from the requirement until 1 January 2017. Micro-businesses are exempted until 1 January 2018.

More about Polish SAF-T

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