Question:
The French company made movements of own goods from France to Poland in the period January – December 2020. The Polish VAT number to intra-Community transaction was not registered – was not active at that time. The movements were purely internal (from France warehouse to Polish warehouse – through Amazon). In December 2021, the French tax authorities initiated tax checks and applied taxation to these transactions at 20% VAT rate. Is the approach of the tax authorities correct?
Analysis:
This is a common problem also for the Amazon sellers. The back dating registration to Polish VAT EU (intra-Community transactions) is not possible. In accordance with art. 42 of the Polish VAT Act, the taxpayer has right to apply 0% VAT rate to EU movements only if the sales was made to a buyer registered for VAT EU in his country, having a valid VAT-EU number issued by the Member State of the buyer, containing the appropriate prefix identifying his country. This condition results also from the article 138 of the Directive 2006/112.
This rule has been implemented into the Polish VAT Act however it always needs to be checked if there are special rules in the country of dispatch before any movements of own goods are made.
Given the foregoing, the taxpayer would be most probably obligated to tax the movements of own goods from France to Poland for 2020 according to the local – French VAT rate.
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