As of February 1, 2024, all excise taxpayers (there are 17,600 of them) were to be obliged to keep excise records and books exclusively in electronic form. Although the Ministry of Finance in the new post-election government has deferred this obligation for now, it will be possible to use the Central Records of Excise Goods (CEWA) voluntarily – at least for the time being. For companies that work with SAP, this means the need to adjust their system.
The introduction of the obligation to keep records in the CEWA system is one of the largest changes in the area of excise duty to date. One of the goals of the new system will be to modernize the settlement and supervision of trade in fuels, alcohol, tobacco and other excise goods. There are more than 17,600 entities subject to excise duty in Poland. These are:
- companies operating tax warehouses;
- enterprises with the registered consignor status;
- enterprises with registered consignee status;
- enterprises making intra-community acquisitions of excise goods;
- enterprises keeping records of control over the production, trade and consumption of ethyl alcohol;
- enterprises with the status of intermediary entities;
- enterprises with the status of consuming entities that consume, in the course of their business, products that are exempt due to their intended use, e.g. lubricating oils;
- enterprises keeping records of dried tobacco;
- enterprises with the status of an electricity excise tax payer;
- enterprises with the status of coal intermediaries and gas intermediaries.
The CEWA solution is prepared using client-server technology. Communication with the user will take place by means of a graphical user interface provided via a web browser. In parallel, for the purpose of adding entries to the documentation, the CEWA system will provide an API for receiving standardized electronic files according to the .xml schema. The solution will allow manual entries to be made in the CEWA system provided online. An alternative will be the possibility of sending batch data in bulk according to an appropriate schema.
CEWA will not only collect the uploaded data, but also process it and perform validations.
The financial and accounting systems of these enterprises will require adjustments to keep the required scope of excise records.
It is worth bearing in mind that electronic records must meet specialized requirements. They should:
- enable viewing the content of entries made and provide protection of stored data against distortion or loss;
- allow data corrections to be made only with the annotation of the person making the correction and the date of the correction;
- allow entries and reports to be printed in chronological order;
- prevent deletion of entries.
Adapt SAP to CEWA requirements
Based on experience with SAP integration with reporting requirements and tax administration systems and legal regulations (including JPK, KSeF, ZSMOPL), All for One Poland is working on a package of solutions that will allow you to adapt SAP to maintain the required excise records and extract and send data to the Central Register of Excise Goods (CEWA). If your company is subject to excise tax, please contact us to discuss the concept of adapting the SAP system to CEWA requirements.