Purchase of services from a VAT perspective

Purchase of services from a VAT perspective

For services supplied by a foreign person from the EU or a third country for which VAT is due in Slovakia, the obligation is transferred to the recipient of the services, in our case the Slovak customer. Vat becomes chargeable on the date of delivery of the service, that is to say, when the service is provided or the service is terminated.

First of all, we need to check that we are registered VAT payers under Section 4 of the VAT Act (pink VAT card) before purchasing services from the EU and third countries. If we are not, we must register under Section 7a of the VAT Act (white VAT card) before receiving the service, so that we can send the VAT number to a potential supplier. The most common mistakes made by Slovak companies are for Google invoices, Facebook invoices or web services, where most companies do not have a VAT number and do not pay VAT to the tax office.

Delivery of the service from the EU

The EU service supplier must issue us with an invoice, excluding VAT, with the note "reverse charge", or in another foreign language. The Slovak VAT payer pursuant to § 4, (classic VAT payer – pink card), is self-waiver and does not pay any VAT, that is, he accepts VAT on both output and input. The Slovak VAT payer pursuant to § 7a (white card) does not have the right to deduct VAT (vat on input VAT does not apply) and must pay VAT 20% of the invoiced amount to the tax office (i.e. the obligation to pay tax in Slovakia and will actually pay it). An example of a service delivery from the EU can be – Google ad invoice and Facebook ad invoice.

Delivery of the service from a third country

If the service is supplied from a third country (non-EU – USA, Australia and others), the invoice does not contain VAT and may /may/ may/ not be a European Union VAT number on the invoice. The Slovak VAT payer pursuant to § 4, (classic VAT payer – pink card), is self-waiver and does not pay any VAT, that is, he accepts VAT on both output and input. The Slovak VAT payer pursuant to § 7a (white card) does not have the right to deduct VAT (vat on input VAT does not apply) and must pay VAT 20% of the invoiced amount to the tax office (i.e. the obligation to pay tax in Slovakia and will actually pay it). An example can be an invoice for web services from the U.S. or Australia.

Vat return submission and audit statement

In both cases, a VAT return must be filed. The tax is shown in lines 11 and 12 of the tax return. The control statement is submitted only by the VAT payer pursuant to § 4. Tax return
and the control statement shall be filed within 25 days of the month after which the service was supplied. For example, if the service was delivered on 23 May, VAT and GOV must be submitted by 25 June.

Ing. Pavol Grožaj
Author of the article
Managing director and partner of the company. He graduated from the University of Economics in Bratislava. From 2006 to 2008, he also successfully completed a two-year AAT course in Level 4 accounting in England. Since 2006, he has been fully engaged in consulting and accounting. He speaks fluent English.
EARLY BIRD

-10% discount
for accounting
for service of documents by the 7th day

handout discount of 10% on accounting