Starting from 1 October 2020, VAT taxpayers registered in Poland are obliged to report their VAT records in a completely new format – the so-called JPK_V7. This electronic form of reporting is quite revolutionary and may become a severe administrative burden for staff responsible for tax settlements.

According to the Polish Ministry of Finance, the aim of the changes was to simplify the VAT reporting obligations by merging the previously submitted VAT return and the JPK_VAT file into one electronic document. Unfortunately, the changes did not turn out to be so easy to implement, and the new JPK_V7 raises many controversies.

Changes in the new JPK_V7 – simplification or new obligations for taxpayers?

On the one hand, this change simplifies the way of reporting, since instead of two different documents, taxpayers will only be obliged to file one document per reporting period. On the other hand, however, in the new JPK_V7 it will be necessary to report information that has not been recorded in any particular way so far. In other words, the scope of information required by tax authorities has been widened significantly.

To give you some flavor of the new responsibilities, please note that in addition to the data which has been reported so far, taxpayers will be obliged to determine, for instance:

  • Grouping of goods and services (by marking some of 13 possible “GTU codes” that indicate transactions from specific categories)
  • Indicating tax procedures (for instance, indication of split payment mechanism, sale of vouchers, transactions with related entities and many others),
  • Indicating the type of document to be shown in the register, various types of documents (e.g., documents confirming importation procedure, certain internal documents etc.).

Given the above new obligations, it is necessary to adjust the appropriate reporting processes and tools handling the company’s tax reporting. Such software must allow for reporting data in a simple and transparent way, without hindering the work of the entrepreneur. Classification should therefore not take place at the stage of accounting, but much earlier - already at the level of sales and warehouse records. However, many IT systems and existing reporting tools may not be ready and adapted to quickly implement the new changes.

Based on our know-how in preparing and reporting JPK_VAT, we have developed some IT tools which may be helpful in that process, in particular:

Compass JPK - a ready-made tool that allows to create JPK_V7 in the XML structure required by law based on source documentation provided by you.

X-RAY tests - a tool which can help you to test the correctness of your JPK_V7 files in accordance with the new regulations.

If you would be interested in our assistance on any matter related to JPK_V7, please do not hesitate to contact Maciej Dybaś.