A cash register without fiscalisation is not a cash register

Some taxpayers are required to record turnover and the amounts of tax due at the cash register. This applies to entrepreneurs who sell goods or provide services to people who do not conduct business or flat-rate farmers and perform certain types of activity (such as taxi services or passenger transport) or who have exceeded the subjective exemption limit (PLN 20,000). Regardless of what is the reason for starting sales recording with a cash register, the entrepreneur must perform a number of obligatory activities for this device to work properly and in accordance with the law.

What to do after purchasing the cash register?

The first step after the purchase of a cash register (or cash registers) is to submit a written notification to the competent head of the tax office about the number of cash registers and the place (address) of their use for recording. Such a declaration must be provided before the applicable date of commencement of the records by means of cash registers.

Then it is necessary to make the fiscalisation of the cash register. It is a single and unique activity that initiates the work of the fiscal module of the cash register with its fiscal memory. The whole process ends with a daily fiscal report that should be attached to the cash register book.Fiscalization is carried out in the presence of a service technician who will be responsible for possible repairs and other service activities at the entrepreneur's premises in the future. Therefore, such a specialist must come from a company for which the national cash register producer or importer is responsible, or from another service authorized by the said producer or importer.

The next step of the entrepreneur is to go back to the tax office to report the cash register that has been fiscalized. Its template is strictly defined and constitutes Annex 3 to the Ordinance of the Minister of Finance on the criteria and technical conditions to be met by cash registers and the conditions of their use. It consists of two parts. In the first, the taxpayer fills in the basic identification data, and in the second, he indicates the place of installation of cash registers.

Also, the fiscal services are obliged to inform the competent tax office about the fiscalisation of the cash register with the taxpayer no later than within seven days from the date of its implementation.

Only after the entrepreneur reports the fact of fiscalisation of the cash register to the competent head of the tax office (within seven days from the date of fiscalisation), the device registered by him will receive a unique registration number. It is not modified even if the properties of the head of the tax office change in the course of the activity. What's more, this number should be permanently marked on the device casing, as well as on the cash register (in which entries regarding service activities are made) and cannot be assigned to any other equipment.

Why fiscalization?

A cash register that has not been fiscalized is the so-called training device. This means that all activities performed on it are not saved permanently and it cannot be used for tax purposes. Only after fiscalisation, i.e. saving the taxpayer's NIP number to the non-volatile and non-erasable memory, the amounts of daily reports are stored in such memory.

Without fiscalisation, it is also impossible to obtain a registration number for a given device, which excludes any taxable activities. With the use of the cash register in the training mode, it is possible to issue non-fiscal receipts and non-fiscal daily reports, but these documents cannot constitute the basis for recording revenues in the tax book of revenues and expenses, or for recording revenues with a lump sum.

It is also worth paying attention to the legal aspect of the lack of fiscalisation. In the event of failure to comply with the above-mentioned obligations, the taxpayer is exposed to fiscal penal liability, as defined in the Act of 10 September 1999 - Fiscal Penal Code. It must be borne in mind that, pursuant to Art. 62 § 1 of the Polish Fiscal and Penal Code, who, contrary to his obligation, fails to issue an invoice or invoice for the performance of a service, issues it incorrectly or refuses to issue it, is subject to a fine of up to 180 daily rates. However, pursuant to Art. 62 § 4 of the Polish Fiscal and Penal Code, the penalty specified in § 1 is also applicable to anyone who, contrary to the provisions of the Act, makes a sale bypassing the cash register or fails to issue a document from the cash register confirming the sale.