How to include a complaint of goods in PKPiR?

Customers have the right to complain about the goods not only in the settlement period in which the transaction took place. For an entrepreneur who is required to recognize a complaint, it may be somewhat problematic - the question of the moment when the correction of such a transaction should be included in the tax revenue and expense ledger is still disputed.

When the contractor advertises or returns the goods, the seller has a reduction in revenue, which should be documented with an adequate corrective invoice or an entry in the register of corrections, if the original sale has been recorded on the basis of the receipt. Importantly, when issuing a correction, the entrepreneur does not complete its issuing date in accordance with the date of issuing the original invoice, but takes into account the actual date.

It would therefore seem that the moment of booking the income adjustment, i.e. in practice reducing its amount and thus reducing the obligatory advance payment for income tax, should take place adequately to the date of the event, which is the acceptance of the return. For example - the sale of goods took place in March, and the return - in July. Therefore, the correction should - according to this path - also be posted in July.

However, the tax authorities have a different opinion on this. In accordance with the opinions of the tax office and court judgments, when reducing revenue, the taxpayer should record the event exactly in the period in which the revenue arose. Thus, it is necessary to reduce the value of the original income and the advance payment calculated on its basis.

Therefore - referring to the previously mentioned example, when the sale took place in March and the return in July - the entrepreneur should include the revenue adjustment in the tax revenue and expense ledger in March, and then include the overpayment when generating the annual tax return.

It is also worth remembering that the return of goods or a complaint may also apply to an already closed tax year. For example - the contractor purchased the goods in October 2012, and returned some of the products in May 2013. In this case, in addition to the need to "return" to October, the taxpayer must also remember to correct the annual PIT declaration.

The justification for the above method of proceeding can be found, among others, in the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of June 1, 2011 (file reference number II FSK 156/10): “Both the linguistic, systemic and functional interpretation of Art. 14 sec. 1 in connection with Art. 11 sec. 1 and art. 9 sec. 2 of the Personal Income Tax Act indicate that the income adjustment by the value of the returned goods may only apply to the tax year in which the income was generated. (...) The mutual reference of the normative content contained in the cited provisions leads to the conclusion that the revenue obtained in a tax / calendar year in the form of amounts due, even if not actually received, should be corrected, i.e. reduced by the value of the returned goods (discounts, discounts). ) that originally formed the revenue of that tax / calendar year, and not any other tax / calendar year, including the year in which the return of goods or the granting or settlement of granted discounts and discounts actually took place. For if, for any reason, the income of a specific tax / calendar year was lower than the sum of the amounts due in that tax / calendar year, the tax bill, the purpose of which is to determine the income from the source of income (Article 9 (2), first sentence of the updof), must be corrected for this negative difference; otherwise, both the income for this tax / calendar year and the income from a specific source in that tax / calendar year would be determined contrary to the principles resulting from the analyzed provisions. "

As you can see, the correct and consistent with the opinion of the tax office is going back and correcting the settlement period in which the original transaction was concluded. Such a necessity has many times aroused and still raises objections among entrepreneurs, according to which the possibility of making corrections on an ongoing basis is a much better and less complicated solution. However, the tax office still remains adamant in this matter, as evidenced by the issued individual interpretations.