A professional seller of cryptocurrencies should know who the buyer is, otherwise he will not settle the goods and services tax correctly - according to another interpretation of the director of the National Tax Information in this matter.
Experts emphasize that although this position of the tax office results directly from the regulations, in practice it is detached from market realities. Therefore, it is necessary to change the regulations, they believe.
– Transactions carried out on cryptocurrency exchanges are anonymous, so the seller does not know whether the buyer is an entrepreneur or an individual not conducting business activity, or whether they live or have their registered office in Poland or abroad – explains Krzysztof Burzyński, tax advisor and partner at BTTP. He emphasizes that there is little chance that investors will obtain such information directly from the exchange. (…)
If the buyer is a non-business person living outside the European Union, then the Polish entrepreneur should not show it in his VAT return as an exempt sale. However, when there is no information about who the buyer is, many sellers show such transactions in the return for safety.
– This is not correct, and the seller exposes himself to accusations of faulty bookkeeping and a fine – explains Krzysztof Burzyński.
He explains that showing a transaction exempt from VAT may have an adverse effect on the proportion of tax deductions in a situation where the company conducts different types of activities. For example, if the turnover of cryptocurrencies (exempt from VAT) amounts to PLN 1 million, and taxable activities - PLN 0,5 million, then the entrepreneur can deduct only one third of the VAT paid in the price of expenses serving both types of activities. (…)
– On the one hand, it is hard to disagree with the tax authorities’ position contained in the interpretations. Both the CJEU judgment of 22 October 2015 and, above all, the EU directive and the Polish VAT Act require verification of the contractor’s status when settling cryptocurrency transactions – comments Krzysztof Burzyński.
He adds that, on the other hand, since investors in practice have no possibility of obtaining such information, they fall into a tax trap.
The expert admits that the safest, although incorrect, solution would be to assume that each of these transactions took place in Poland. (…)
http://podatki.gazetaprawna.pl/artykuly/1263395,obowiazki-sprzedawcy-kryptowalut.html
