One mistake in KSeF can cost you dearly. The tax office leaves no doubt

An error when sending documents to KSeF may have serious tax consequences. This is shown by the interpretation of the Director of the National Tax Information regarding a company that correctly issued and submitted invoices to contractors outside the system, and later, during integration tests, re-sent the same data to KSeF.

The scale of the mistake was large. A total of 2,568 documents were entered into the system. KSeF accepted them and assigned them numbers, as a result of which the same sale was documented for the second time. The taxpayer argued that it was only a technical error and the transactions had already been properly documented and settled.

Duplicate invoice in KSeF. It cannot be removed

However, the KIS director did not agree with the approach according to which the documents could be left in the system without further action. An invoice sent to KSeF has the same consequences as any other invoice. After assigning a number, it becomes a legal document, enters into economic circulation and is considered received by the buyer.

The problem is that KSeF does not provide the option to cancel, delete or edit an invoice that has already been sent to the contractor. If the document entered the system by mistake or contains an error, the taxpayer must issue a correction invoice. The correction must also be issued in KSeF.

The tax office may request VAT twice

The tax consequences of duplicating a document are particularly important. If the same taxable transaction is confirmed by two invoices, the taxpayer may, in principle, be obliged to pay the tax resulting from both documents.

In the described case, the sale was first properly documented and settled with invoices issued outside KSeF. However, the subsequent sending of the same data to the system created a second set of documents which, from the point of view of regulations, function as subsequent sales invoices.

Invoices must be adjusted “to zero”

Leaving duplicate documents without reaction would therefore involve the risk of applying Art. 108 section 1 of the VAT Act and requesting tax payment for the second time. The director of KIS indicated a solution: invoices entered by mistake into KSeF should be corrected “to zero” by providing their identification numbers in the system.

At the same time, the interpretation shows that the technical nature of the error does not exempt from the obligation to formally correct it. This also applies to situations where the error occurred during integration tests, involves hundreds or thousands of documents, or occurred before the deadline for the mandatory use of KSeF by a given taxpayer.

KSeF will not correct the error for the entrepreneur

The system does not change the basic principles of invoicing. A structured invoice must still meet the requirements of the VAT Act, and the place of issue does not change the taxpayer’s liability. Errors resulting solely from technical issues also require corrections.

The authors of the material point out that the first months of the mandatory KSeF reveal risks that may have been difficult to predict before. Therefore, companies should organize the processes related to issuing invoices so as to limit the possibility of errors and know how to react when an incorrect document enters the system.