PIT-11 - how to fill it in correctly?

The new year brings various tax obligations for both employers and employees. This also applies to the need to complete and submit PIT-11 - a document that must be prepared by all employers and clients.

Obligation to submit PIT-11

Let's start with the fact that PIT-11 is a tax document that is filled in each time by people employing even one employee. Therefore, the necessity to prepare this declaration applies only to employers and clients. Employees and contractors are exempt from the obligation to fill in PIT-11 on their own.

Employers must complete and submit such a document to the tax office by the end of January at the latest (exceptionally this year by February 1, 2021, because January 31 falls on Sundays). A few years ago, the deadline for submitting PIT-11 by the employer was longer - this obligation could be fulfilled by the end of February.

Employers and principals must also remember to hand over the completed PIT-11 directly to their subordinates - the current deadline is March 1, 2021 (February 28 falls on Sunday). The employer can do it both in a traditional (paper) form and electronically - the second case, however, occurs only when the employee agrees to deliver the tax declaration in this way.

What is the purpose of PIT-11?

PIT-11 is very important - thanks to the information it contains, the tax office and the taxpayer can correctly prepare the tax return for the previous year. In other words, PIT-11 is used to fill in other tax returns (most often PIT-36 and PIT-37). Without correct information from the employer, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to submit your own tax return.

What information does PIT-11 contain?

Each PIT-11 contains a number of important tax information, including:

• the amount of income of the employed person along with the costs of obtaining them,
• the amount of the employee's / contractor's income,
• the amount of tax advances collected,
• determination of social and health insurance contributions.

What is needed to correctly fill in PIT-11?

Anyone who is required to complete PIT-11 should collect information on:

• data of your employee or contractor (PESEL or NIP number, address of residence, data on the tax office competent for the employee - most often it is the tax office competent for the place of residence of the employee or contractor),
• the amount of earnings of the employee in the previous tax year - this is the gross amount of remuneration (the employee's or contractor's income),
• the amount of tax deductible costs by the employee, tax advances collected and social and health insurance contributions paid,
• the method of transferring PIT-11 to the employee - here you can choose a paper form (the declaration is handed over in person or via a registered letter) or electronic form (the employee provides his / her current e-mail address).

How to fill in PIT-11?

The PIT-11 form consists of two pages and 9 main sections marked with letters from A to I. You can download the tax declaration yourself from the Internet. We can also obtain the appropriate form at any tax office. PIT-11 can be filled in both manually and by computer.

Part A - place and purpose of submitting the declaration

In this part, the employer specifies the tax office competent for his employee or contractor. As a rule, this will be the office corresponding to the place of residence of the employed person.

Part A also requires the purpose of submitting the form to be indicated. If the employer submits PIT-11 for the previous tax year, select the option “1. Submission of information ".

However, if PIT-11 for the previous year has already been submitted and the employer has to correct the information indicated therein, the option “2. Correction of information ”. Such a situation will appear, for example, when the employer has made a mistake in determining the amount of his employee's income and has already sent PIT-11 to the tax office (and at the same time has time to submit a correction - corrections to the incorrect declaration).

Part B - Identification of the applicant

In this section, we define the employer's data. If the employer or the client is a natural person (e.g. he runs his own business or has privately concluded any contract of mandate), in field “8. Type of composing ", select the option" 2. Natural person ". With such a choice, we do not have to fill in the field “9. Full name "- leave it blank or cross it out. However, we must then fill in the field "10. Surname, full name, date of birth ”.

If, on the other hand, the employer is a legal person (e.g. a commercial company employing employees) - it will be necessary to select the option “1. Composers who are not a natural person ". With such a choice, it is not necessary to complete the field “10. Surname, full name, date of birth ", we must, however, fill in the field" 9. Full name ”- we define here the exact name of the employer (in practice it will be the employer's company).

Part C - taxpayer's identification and address

This part is used to define the data of the employee or contractor. If the employed person resides in Poland, in field “11. Type of taxpayer's tax obligation ", select the option" 1. Unlimited tax liability (resident) ”.

However, if the employee lives outside of Poland, it will be necessary to select this option
"2. Limited tax liability (non-resident) ”. In this case, also specify a country other than the Republic of Poland and the address of residence abroad of the employed person. In addition, the code of the country of issuance of the document should be consistent with the country of the address of residence.

Filling in the rest of the information in this part should not be a big problem - we simply provide identification data of the employed person, such as, for example, name, surname or PESEL number.

Part D - information on tax deductible costs

In this section, we need to mark one of the four squares (options). Depending on how many contracts our employee has (based on how many of them earned revenues last year), we mark accordingly:

1. from one employment relationship (related relationships) - applies to a situation in which the employee obtained income from one contract with one employer;
2. from more than one employment relationship (related relationships) - applies to a situation in which the employee obtained income from more than one contract (at least two) with one employer;
3. from one employment relationship (related relationships), increased due to the taxpayer's residence outside the town where the workplace is located - applies to a situation in which the employee obtained income from one contract with one employer;
4. from more than one employment relationship (related relationships), increased due to the taxpayer's residence outside the town where the workplace is located - applies to a situation in which the employee has obtained income from more than one contract (at least two) with one employer.

Part E - the taxpayer's income, collected advances and collected contributions

In this part, the employer must enter the exact amounts related to the remuneration of his employee or contractor. The information that must be included here includes:

• the amount of income,
• costs,
• advances settled by payers.

Enter specific amounts in columns b, c, d and e of this section, respectively. Remember to carefully assign a given amount to the source of income from which they come (the sources of income are described in detail in the first column of this part of the form).
In fields 69 to 74, we enter the amount of social and health insurance contributions - if the contributions for a given person were paid under different contracts, their amount is added up.

Part F - information on the amount of revenues referred to in art. 20 paragraph 1 of the Act and part G - information on tax-exempt income and the PIT-R appendix

Part F and G are completed by:

• farmers,
• natural persons running a business,
• legal persons and their organizational units,
• organizational units without legal personality,
• obliged to pay benefits without the obligation to calculate, collect and pay tax advances for employees.

In part F, we enter the benefits and salaries from which the payers are not obliged to collect tax advances.

Part G - information on income exempt from tax

In part G, we indicate revenues that are exempt from tax. When filling out this part, remember that the income from student scholarships covers only the amounts up to the tax exemption limit, i.e. not exceeding PLN 3800. Higher scholarships are already taxed, but only to the extent of the amount exceeding the above-mentioned amount. value - the surplus should therefore be taxed by the payer and must go to PIT to the so-called other sources of income.

Part H - signature of the payer or the person designated to calculate and collect the tax / payer's representative

The signature in this part is made by the employer or a person authorized by him - very often it is the company's accountant.

Part I - signature of the person authorized to draw up the information

We only sign this part if we have filled in part F - otherwise we will leave the field blank or crossed out.

PIT-11 - by itself or with the help of the program?

Currently, there are many programs on the Internet that allow you to quickly and efficiently fill in the PIT-11 form. It is worth taking an interest in them - there is no requirement to manually calculate and enter data on the remuneration of employees.

Tax programs allow you to easily prepare a correct declaration, which we will then send to the tax office and to the employee or contractor concerned.

Of course, we can also use accounting services or specialized accounting offices in this area.