It was generally understood that the sale of real estate was exempted from issuing an invoice when made through a deed.
Recently, has been released a new understanding of the Portuguese Tax Authority regarding the issuance of invoices on the transmission of real estate.
According to the content of the Binding Information related to Process No. 16416, there is the obligation of issuing an invoice for each transmission of real estate, inclusive for the advanced payments received, even though the transferor of the properties is a taxpayer who engages solely in exempt transactions which do not afford a right to make deductions.
Shall be exempt from this obligation:
Legal persons governed by public law, non-profit bodies and private social solidarity institutions that exclusively carry out VAT-free transactions and who have obtained, for the purposes of Corporate Income Tax, in the previous tax period, an annual gross income lower than 200,000 euros.
Transactions in which has been exercised the option to waive of the VAT exemption provided in Article 12 of the VAT Code, regulated through the Regime of Waiving the VAT Exemption on Real Estate Transactions, published as an annex to the Decree-Law No. 21/2007, of January 29, provided that the deed contains all the elements required by article 36 of the VAT Code, with the exception of numbering. Invoices must be processed exclusively by a program previously certified by the Portuguese Tax Authority in cases where the transferor of the property is required to have organized accounting or has chosen to have it. In view of this new position of the Portuguese Tax Authority, we recommend the issuing of invoices for each transmission of real estate or autonomous fractions thereof, and respective advances, whenever the above-mentioned exceptions cannot be applied.
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