Outsourcing of Finance-Accounting in View of the Requirements Arising from the Implementation of the Standard Audit File for Tax

Magdalena Chomuszko
(Sage Ltd., Poland)

Abstract: Since 2005, the OECD introduces a truly revolutionary change in the form of tax inspections of taxpayers. This change involves collecting data directly from the tax books and reporting them to the tax authorities in an electronic format, using the files in xml format, which is called Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) and in Poland it is called the Single Control File. This form of settlements with the authorities, forces taxpayers to computerize their businesses, as well as to perform a more careful approach to recording the data. It can be expected that the outsourcing of financial accounting will become more important in the near future, and the demand for such services will grow very high. One should be awared, however, that such a growing demand will imply many challenges for the outsourcing companies. The author has been providing trainings on the Standard Audit File for one year already. During these trainings she observed that taxpayers are not quite aware of all the consequences of the e-checks implementation by the Ministry of Finance. She decided to investigate the level of preparation of accounting offices in order to address the challenges to the new requirements of the tax authorities. The answers to the questionnaire unfortunately confirmed the initial assessment of the situation, that it becomes necessary to take this topic and discussion about the directions being well prepared for the upcoming changes.

Key words: SAF-T; outsourcing; accounting; tax

JEL codes: K