Sale-and-lease back not rental but other service subject to VAT

The Supreme Tax Court considers a sale-and-lease-back transaction as a taxable other service rather than a lease or the tax-exempt grant of a loan if the chosen scenario is a reasonable non-tax driven choice of form used to enable the seller (lessee) to enjoy certain accounting and reporting benefits.

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VAT exemption for Intra-Community supplies: Transport document can be replaced by destination document

In order to apply the VAT exemption for intra-Community supplies in Belgium (article 39bis of the Belgian VAT Code), Belgian VAT authorities require the supplier (amongst others) to obtain and keep a set of commercial documents that the goods have been transported from Belgium to another Member State. Suitable evidence includes contracts, purchase orders, transport documents and payment documents.

In order to enhance legal certainty, the Belgian VAT authorities recently published a new Administrative Decision (E.T. 129.460) which confirms that the transport document can be replaced by a so-called destination document.

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Monthly SAF-T VAT PL - deadline 25 August 2016!

According to new regulation Large Enterprises are obliged to submit mandatory VAT SAF-T file in legal XML format for the first time on 25 August 2016. It is a monthly obligation.

SAP and VAT SAF-T

I refer for complete overview to 'SAF-T for Poland and SAP'.

Most companies download the standard SAP VAT return reports from SAP to Excel and have an Excel working paper for review and adjustments. The data in the SAP reports are retrieved from various SAP tables.The SAF-T VAT file need to reconcile with the submitted VAT return (monthly or quarterly).

If this file does not reconcile to the submitted VAT return the risk that the PL tax authorities will ask questions - explain the differences - is high.

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Transfer pricing and IT needs

From a tax controversy perspective TP documentation is important and often results in conflicting priorities within the tax function (allocation of budget and tax resources).

Better resource allocation and process improvement can be achieved via (semi)automated documentations, configure ERP systems to support TP needs or implement add-on or bolt-on tools. For example, in the area of data extraction and workflow management, entity charting, document storage, real time reporting, scenario planning and data interrogation.

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