At the beginning of this year, the MF announced that mandatory KSeF will not take effect on June 1st, 2024, as initially panned. This decision was reached due to numerous inaccuracies regarding the process, along with errors and IT problems that precluded the timely launch of the system.
At the beginning of February, the MF announced tax consultations which would answer the questions and concerns of entrepreneurs. The Ministry accentuated that the meetings were held to improve the current functionality of the system and reduce the costs of implementing and using KSeF.
Tax consultations - consumer invoices
During the consultations, the business community, accountants, tax advisors and the IT industry all voiced numerous demands related to KSeF. This included introducing the possibility of voluntary invoicing in KSeF for consumers. This is due to the difficulty for businesses to distinguish whether their buyer is a taxable person or a consumer, hence, in issuing the apt invoice.
In the current version of the KSeF assumptions, transactions with individuals who do not conduct business will be excluded from mandatory KSeF.
Important
However, current draft legislation does not provide answers how sellers are to distinguish between these two entities, shifting the associated risk onto entrepreneurs. At this point it should be emphasized that a failure to issue an invoice in KSeF despite such an obligation will be sanctioned.
Invoice number or payment ID
Another problem that needs to be clarified is the obligation to indicate the KSeF invoice number or the collective payment identifier (ID) when paying for invoices issued in KSeF. It is not entirely clear whether this obligation also applies to foreign entrepreneurs and how, for example, to provide such a collective ID in the situation of other payment instruments, where, for example, it is the seller who debits the buyer's account in the so-called direct debit, while the payment ID can be generated by the buyer.
KSeF in an offline version?
During the consultation process, several suggestions were made to improve the implementation of KSeF. One suggestion which received a lot of attention was the idea of an initial phase of implementing KSeF offline. The MF announced that it would be reviewing this idea. The concept would be to issue offline invoices and send them to KSeF later (a few days). MF representatives considered this a very interesting proposal, which could reduce the load on the system and allow it to be adjusted accordingly and correct any errors while it is up and running.
Other requests
Participants attending the consultations also raised the need to issue binding legal clarifications in connection with the introduction of the KSeF. The MF announced the issuance of clarifications regarding fixed establishment (FE).
According to the legislation, entities registered for VAT in Poland without an FE, do not have to join KSeF. In practice, however, doubts arise as to how the definition of an FE should be understood.
It is difficult to predict at this point whether there will be any changes to the scheme itself, despite signals from the MF that it does not intend to make changes to the scheme.
New date
The MF is expected to give a new effective date for introducing KSeF in late April/early May, after analyzing the results of the KSeF audit. For the time being, the new date is unknown. It is also unclear whether KSeF will be implemented in stages. An overwhelming number of communities affected by KSeF are calling for simultaneous implementation of KSeF for everyone, on a single date. This is related, among other things, to the problem of establishing the criteria by which the stages would be divided, in the context of ease of identification by invoice issuers. Various proposals were made, including the size of the entity, the amount on the invoice, etc.
During the consultations, there were also calls for not implementing changes on January 1st, 2025, due to the accumulation of various year-end obligations. The dates proposed by stakeholders were spread between June and September 2025, but it is unclear whether these demands will be considered. Instead, draft amendments to the legislation are expected to be ready by June-July. Should you have any questions about the National e-Invoicing System and its impact on your business -
