Branches of foreign entrepreneurs are not a popular form of conducting business activity in Poland, and therefore the correctness of indicating them in the documents may raise doubts. This regards in particular indicating such entities on VAT invoices – issued not only by a foreign entrepreneur operating within the branch (sales invoices), but also by its contractors (purchase invoices). The confusion is caused, among others, by assigning a tax identification number (NIP) to the branch, which number is entered in the Register of Entrepreneurs of the National Court Register (and which is used by the branch to fulfill withholding agent’s obligations in relation to the employees employed) and, finally, which is different from the NIP number of the foreign entrepreneur entered, among others, in the list of VAT taxpayers (the white list) used for tax settlements i.a. in the scope of VAT.

There are also concerns about the indication of a correct name of the branch and its address. The VAT Act provides a quite general information on this issue, as it requires to indicate “the name of the taxpayer and purchaser of the goods and their addresses” on the invoice. Therefore, the question arises whether, since the VAT payer is a foreign entrepreneur (a branch is not a separate taxpayer from the entrepreneur), the invoice should indicate the name of the branch, in accordance with the Act on the Rules for the Participation of Foreign Entrepreneurs (...), or simply the business name of the foreign entrepreneur listed in the foreign register of entrepreneurs? Should the invoice indicate the registration address of the branch in Poland or the registration address of the foreign entrepreneur in the country of its seat?

One of our clients wanted to make sure that the invoices are correct and applied for an individual interpretation of tax law regulation. In the application, they presented 10 (purchase and sales) invoice versions in total.  Each version included Polish NIP number of the entrepreneur entered in the white list. The Director of The National Tax and Customs Information Office questioned only one of the sales invoice versions. The version included the business name (indicated in the foreign register of entrepreneurs) of the foreign entrepreneur, registration address of the foreign entrepreneur from the country of its seat, and the Polish NIP number from the white list.

Despite a rather general justification that sales invoice version was questioned as it failed to indicate the full nature of the transaction – namely it failed to indicate that it had been conducted within the activity of the branch. Interestingly, the sales invoice version with the same taxpayer’s name, but with the Polish address of the branch, was considered correct.

Mirosław Bik, attorney-at-law, and Mateusz Dyśko, attorney-at-law and tax advisor, provided  legal assistance and prepared the application for an interpretation for our client.