Electronic confirmation of receipt of a correction invoice

There are situations in business transactions when the seller is obliged to issue a correcting invoice. In such a case, the procedure to be followed with regard to VAT depends on whether the purpose of the correction is to establish an increase in the tax base or the amount of tax itself, or to reduce them. In the former case, the invoice should be entered retroactively in the period in which the economic event confirmed by the original document took place. In the case of reductions - their recognition may take place on an ongoing basis, provided, however, that the contractor receives confirmation of receipt of the correcting invoice.

Confirmation of receipt of a correction invoice and VAT

The general rule regulates that the taxpayer may reduce the VAT tax base provided that he has a confirmation of receipt of the correcting invoice by the buyer for whom it was issued. It is important that the seller obtains them before the deadline for submitting the tax declaration for the given accounting period in which the buyer of the goods or services received the invoice correction. Obtaining the confirmation after the deadline for submitting the tax declaration for a given tax period entitles the taxpayer to take into account the invoice correction for the period in which the confirmation was received.

What form of confirmation?

It has not been legally regulated as to what form the confirmation of receipt of the corrective invoice should take by the buyer of the goods or service, therefore, in practice, various methods are used. Entrepreneurs most often use:

• the buyer's signature directly on the issued correction,

• a fax with a signature on the correction,

• scanned copy of the correcting invoice with the buyer's signature sent by e-mail,

• postal acknowledgment of receipt,

• electronic acceptance, i.e. an e-mail sent directly by the recipient.

As it follows from the above, the confirmation of receipt of the corrective invoice by the contractor does not have to be in the form of registered mail only with a return confirmation of receipt. Tax authorities also allow electronic confirmation of receipt of a corrective invoice sent by e-mail, as evidenced by the position of the Director of the Tax Chamber in Warsaw presented in the individual ruling of October 18, 2013 (file reference number IPPP1 / 443-979 / 13-2 / IGo). He stated that it is correct to lower the tax base in the event that the issuer of the correcting invoice receives, in response to a message containing a correcting invoice, an automatic return e-mail with a predetermined content, or when he receives an automatic return message with a predetermined content, informing that the document has been read by the buyer.

As you can see, confirmation of receipt of a correction invoice does not have to be only traditional - paper forms, but information sent by e-mail is also acceptable, even if it constitutes an automatic reply generated by e-mail.