New obligations for payment service providers under an amendment to the VAT Act

On May 18, 2023, the President signed into an act of 14 April, 2023, amending the VAT Act and certain other acts. Individual payment service providers involved in cross-border transactions will be subject to a reporting obligation as of 1 January, 2024. This will be an obligation to declare certain cross-border transactions to the Central Electronic System of Payment Information (CESOP), which is managed by the European Commission.
The reporting obligation will apply to payment service providers specified in article 4(2)(1)-(6) and (9) of the Payment Services Act, including:
- banks in EEA countries;
- branches of foreign banks;
- credit institutions and branches of credit institutions;
- e-money institutions;
- payment institutions;
- credit unions.
The payment service providers listed above will be required to keep records of payees and cross-border payments for each quarter in electronic form for the payment services they provide. The reporting obligation is triggered when the payment service provider executes more than 25 cross-border payments to a single payee per quarter. A payment is a cross-border payment when the payer is located in one member state and the payee in another member state or third country.

The cross-border payment records kept by payment service providers must include the following details:
- the BIC (SWIFT) code or any other identifier code that unambiguously identifies the payment service provider;
- the name or business name of the payee;
- the tax identification number;
- the IBAN or any other appropriate identifier code that identifies the payee;
- the address of the payee, if available to the payment service provider;
- the details of the cross-border payment such as currency, amount, and date of the payment.
If the home member state of the payment service provider or member state of destination of the payment is Poland, the payment service provider has to submit the records to the Head of the National Revenue Administration. The collected data is submitted to the CESOP through the central liaison office.