New confirmation of EU supply of goods - 0% VAT
An invoice from a transport company and a confirmation of payment of remuneration to the carrier may be sufficient to apply the 0% rate for intra-community supply of goods - it results from a very favourable tax ruling for one of our clients, on the documents that entitle to apply the 0% VAT rate for intra-community supply of goods.
The subject matter of the ruling referred, however, not to the documents specified in the Polish VAT Act, but to the so-called "alternative documents" listed in the Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011, which was amended as of 1 January 2020 in connection with the entry into force of EU Quick Fixes package. This regulation is directly applicable in all EU countries, including Poland.
The National Tax Information Director agreed with the Applicant that in order to apply the 0% VAT rate for intra-community supply of goods it is sufficient to collect two documents listed in the above-mentioned EU regulations:
(a) the invoice from the transport company/carrier and
(b) the transfer confirmation for the payment of this invoice.
Gathering the documents indicated above means that in order to apply the 0% rate it is no longer necessary to receive the CMR consignment letter signed by the buyer.
The obtained tax ruling is very beneficial because the confirmation of remuneration transfer to the transport company is very easy to have (actually its reception is almost entirely dependent on the taxpayer performing the intra-community supply of goods, who can generate it himself from the electronic banking system). Therefore, practically the only "external document" that the taxpayer performing the intra-community supply of goods has to take care of is the invoice from the carrier / transport company which usually does not pose any significant problems.
Therefore, if acompany makes intra-community supplies of goods, we strongly recommend obtaining analogous individual tax ruling. It would limit the risk of questioning the 0% VAT rate in case of all those intra-community supplies for which the receipt of CMR document is:
(a) impeded,
(b) delayed, or
(c) where the CRM document is defective or incomplete (e.g. does not contain the buyer's signature).
If you are interested in the above topic, please contact the Mazars Tax Advisory Department.
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