Export of goods from Poland can be done directly with custom clearance at the Polish border, however, there are business models which include movement of goods from Poland but with custom clearance at EU border in a different than Poland country. VAT treatment of such situation has been analysed below. In the below scenario the transport of goods has not been interrupted at any point.
Description of the case:
Goods will be exported and transported from Poland to the UK. Customs clearance will be done at the French border. Transport of goods will be continuous, uninterrupted. It will not be the transport of own goods.
Analysis:
Based on art. 2 p. 8 of the PL VAT Act, the analysed transaction meets the conditions regarding export. Export is defined as a supply of goods dispatched or transported from the territory of the country outside the territory of the European Union by supplier or purchaser if the export of the goods outside the territory of the EU is confirmed by the competent customs authority specified in the customs regulations.
In accordance with art. 41 p.6 and 6a of the PL VAT Act, a taxpayer has right to apply 0% VAT rate to export transactions only if before the deadline for filing the VAT return for a given tax period, he received a document confirming the export of the goods outside the territory of the EU.
The confirmation for the export of goods is among other the document in electronic form received from the ICT system used for handling export declarations, or a printout of such document confirmed by the competent customs authority.
In Poland, this document is called IE599. If the goods will be subject to the custom procedure in France, the custom documents equivalent to IE599 will be needed. In France it is most probably EX A declaration.
Conclusions:
Based on the above assumptions and articles from PL VAT Act, the analysed transfer of goods from Poland to UK, with custom procedure at the FR border (or other border in UE) will be treated as export from PL to the UK and declared in PL VAT reports. Due to its uninterrupted character, it should not be treated as two separation transactions- intracommunity delivery from PL to FR and then export from FR to UK.
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