New obligations and new penalties – a few words about the mandatory KSEF

New sanctions in the VAT law

New regulations are to be added to the provisions of the VAT Law providing for the possibility of imposing fines for failure to fulfill KSeF obligations. These regulations will take effect on January 1, 2025.

These penalties will be imposed in the following three situations:

  • if a structured invoice, despite the obligation, is not issued (e.g., an invoice is issued in the invoicing system, but is not uploaded to KSeF),
  • if during the period of failure or maintenance work in KSeF, or the inability to issue a structured invoice for reasons attributable to the taxpayer, an invoice is issued that does not comply with the required template (i.e., the logical structure specified by the Ministry of Finance),
  • if invoices issued during the period of failure or maintenance work in KSeF, or the inability to issue a structured invoice for reasons attributable to the taxpayer, are not sent to KSeF within the required period.

Sanctions will be up to 100% of the amount of VAT shown on the invoice, respectively, and in the case of an invoice without VAT shown, up to 18.7% of the total value of the invoice.

The fines will be imposed by decision by the head of the tax office. The deadline for payment of the fines will be 14 days from the date of delivery of the decision imposing the fine.

Importantly, the fines will be imposed by the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure. Accordingly, when issuing a decision, the authority will be required to consider the circumstances surrounding the violation. This means that, in principle, the amount of fines should be determined individually in each case. However, it cannot be ruled out that the authorities will take a restrictive stance and the fines they impose will be as high as possible.

Permanent provisions of the Fiscal Penal Code

Furthermore, the VAT Act is to be supplemented with a provision indicating that in cases of a taxpayer’s failure to comply with the obligations discussed above (i.e. subject to a fine), proceedings for fiscal crimes or fiscal offenses will not be initiated. However, in other cases of irregularities related to invoicing, sanctions under the Fiscal Penal Code may be applied (e.g. when an invoice is issued in an unreliable manner).