ORIGINAL AND COPY INVOICE - CAN VAT BE DEDUCTED FROM IT? - SERVICE-TAX

Original and copy invoice - can VAT be deducted from it?

Along with successive amendments to tax regulations, the obligatory elements of invoices are slightly liberalized. Such a process also took place with regard to the annotations "original" and "copy", which until the end of 2010 entrepreneurs were obliged to put on their documents. Nevertheless, to this day, you can find documents that contain the above provisions. Can such a procedure affect the possibility of deducting VAT from the original and a copy of the invoice?

Original and copy invoice - regulations

In accordance with the applicable Article 106g par. 1 of the Act on tax on goods and services (VAT), the entrepreneur should document the sale transaction with two copies of the invoice. One of them is transferred to the recipient, the other one goes to the seller's accounting documentation.

As previously mentioned, there is no longer any obligation to mark invoices as copy and original, therefore buyers and sellers will have identical copies of the invoice in their documentation.

Invoice elements

Pursuant to Art. 106e of the VAT Act, the invoice should contain:

date of issue;

one or more series number that uniquely identifies the invoice;

the first and last names or names of the taxpayer and the buyer of the goods or services and their addresses;

the number by which the taxpayer is identified for tax purposes;

the number by which the buyer of goods or services is identified for the purposes of tax or value added tax under which he received the goods or services;

the date on which the delivery of the goods or the service was completed or completed, or the date on which the payment was received, if such a date is specified and differs from the invoice issue date;

name (type) of goods or services;

measure and quantity (number) of delivered goods or scope of services provided;

the unit price of a good or service without the tax amount (net unit price);

the amount of any price discounts or rebates, including in the form of an early payment discount, provided that they are not included in the net unit price;

value of the goods delivered or services performed, covered by the transaction, excluding the tax amount (net sales value);

tax rate;

the sum of the net sales value, broken down into sales subject to individual tax rates and sales exempt from tax;

the amount of tax on the sum of the net sales value, broken down into amounts related to individual tax rates;

the total amount due.

The above catalog is not exhaustive, so the taxpayer may include additional elements in his invoice. Thus, marking a copy or an original will not affect the right to deduct VAT. It is worth paying attention to art. 2 point 31 of the VAT Act, according to which an invoice should be understood as a paper or electronic document that contains the data required by the provisions of the Act and is issued on their basis. On the other hand, an electronic invoice is an invoice in electronic form, issued and received in any electronic format - as indicated in Art. 2 point 32 of the Act. In summary, marking invoices as a copy and original will not affect whether the taxpayer is entitled to deduct VAT or not.