In response to the extraordinary increase in food prices, an exceptional and temporary measure comes into force today providing for the transitional application of a Value Added Tax (VAT) exemption with the right to deduct (zero rate) to food products from the healthy essential food basket.
It means that on purchases made of these goods from 18 April 2023 until 31 October 2023, suppliers should not pay VAT (invoices should be exempt from VAT), just as on sales of these goods VAT should not be paid to customers, either on sales to traders (taxable persons for VAT), whether in sales to final consumers (public).
In terms of practical procedures, from today you should take into account the two options for the purposes of procedures at the level of your computer programs:
- Modification of the product fiche by associating the 0% VAT rate to the products in question, temporarily during the period in which this rate applies;
- Creation of specific products with the 0% rate to be used during the period in which this rate applies;
- In the case of the creation of new products, the internal transfer of existing stocks will have to be carried out at the beginning and at the end of the use of these products.
Full list of the goods to which this exemption will apply:
1. Cereals and derivatives, tubers:
- Bread
- Potatoes in their natural state, fresh or chilled
- Pasta and similar dried pastes, excluding stuffed pasta
- Rice (husked, bleached, polished, glaciated, stewed, converted into broken rice)
2. Fruits in the natural state:
- Apple
- Banana
- Orange
- Pear
- Melon
3. Legumes in dry state
- Red beans
- Black-eyed peas
- Chickpea
4. Fresh fish (live or dead), chilled, frozen, dried, salted or in brine, excluding smoked or preserved fish:
- Cod
- Sardine
- Hake
- Horse mackerel
- Sea bream
- Mackerel
5. Canned tuna
6. Chicken eggs, fresh, dried or preserved
7. Dietary products for enteric nutrition and gluten-free products for celiac patients
8. Fresh or chilled vegetables, dried, dehydrated or frozen, even if previously cooked:
- Onion
- Tomato
- Cauliflower
- Lettuce
- Broccoli
- Carrot
- Courgette
- Leek
- Pumpkin
- Greens
- Portuguese cabbage
- Spinach
- Turnip
- Peas
9. Dairy:
- Cow’s milk in nature, sterilized, pasteurized, ultrapasteurized, fermented or powdered
- Yoghurts or fermented milks
- Cheeses
10. Meat and edible offal, fresh or frozen
- Pig
- Chicken
- Peru
- Cow
11. Fats and oils:
- Olive oil
- Directly edible vegetable oils and mixtures thereof (edible oils)
- Butter
12. Plant-based beverages and yoghurts, without milk and dairy products, produced from nuts, cereals or preparations based on cereals, fruits, vegetables or vegetables.
Regarding the code with the reason for the exemption from VAT, AT created the code for insertion in the SAFT of the billing “M26”.
How can Moneris help?
Moneris’ Technical Tax Committee, as well as its expert advisors, are available to help clarify these and other measures that may be implemented in the tax field.
Contact your Moneris manager or use the usual media: info@moneris.pt | 210 316 400.