White list of VAT payers – information published just before the new legislation entered into force

In mid-August, the Ministry of Finance provided additional information about the white list of VAT taxpayers. We already wrote about the electronic list facilitating the verification of contractors on our blog in April and July. We know that from September 1, an extended register of taxpayers’ data will be available – the so-called „white list”. In the list, taxpayers will be able to check the following data of their contractors:

✓ Name of the company or names of natural persons carrying on business;
✓ Tax status of the entity (active, exempt, etc.);
✓ Company’s registered address (for entities other than natural persons) and permanent place of business (for natural persons);
✓ Address of residence of natural persons engaged in business activities;
✓ Data of persons authorised to represent economic entities and their partners (names, personal identity number, tax number);
✓ Dates of operations related to entries in the tax register (date of registration, deletion, restoration, etc.);
✓ Tax number, National Business Registry Number and National Court Register number (if assigned);
✓ Bank account numbers indicated in the identification application or update application data in the register.

Risk of joint and several liability for tax arrears

The last information seems to be crucial from the point of view of people running a business. If a payment is made to a bank account that is out of date at the time of payment – only PLN 15,000 will qualify as a deductible cost. In addition, if the counterparty fails to pay the tax due on the transaction, joint and several liability of both parties is foreseen. The consequences of transferring payments to an account other than the one indicated in the white list are to apply from 1 January 2020.

API programming interface of the list of VAT payers

August 23rd this year the National Revenue Administration, which administers the white list, made available the target version of API, i.e. the application interface which is used for automatic verification of taxpayers’ data on the basis of a simultaneous request for tax number and bank account number. The use of this tool is unfortunately quite limited, as it assumes that the taxpayer will be able to submit 10 inquiries about 30 entities in one day, i.e. to verify 300 contractors per day. This seems to be far from sufficient for large companies. Apart from API, the taxpayer will be able to check the data of individual contractors on the Ministry’s website without any limitations.