E-invoicing in Poland became voluntary towards the end of 2021. To this effect, the Polish government has published a regulation on the use of the e-invoicing system. This regulation deals with several practical and logistical issues, including
• Authorisation required to use the National System of e-invoices;
• How authorisations can be granted, changed or withdrawn;
• How to authenticate entities using the National System;
• Structured invoice data, which will enable access to the invoice in the system
The link for this regulation can be found here.
While Tungsten Network is not supporting the voluntary phase, we are fully committed to supporting e-invoicing in Poland, when it is expected to become mandatory at a later date in 2023, which is yet to be confirmed.
Compliance Category: Informations sur le mandat fiscal
There have been large strides made in the B2G landscape in the German Federal States.
In the Federal States of Sarre, Baden Wurttemberg and Hamburg, it is now mandatory for suppliers to issue electronic invoices as of 1st January 2022. This excludes direct orders with a value of under 1,000 Euros.
Other states are expected to follow, including West Mecklenburg-Pomerania in 2023, Hesse in 2024 and Rhineland-Palatinate in January 2024.
Luxembourg is making significant progress with B2G e-invoicing, and has set out a timeframe for B2G e-invoicing in the country.
As with many other countries, the underlying aim is to introduce greater transparency within the tax authority domain, as well as improving efficiency of the transactions with the public sector.
Companies will be obliged to send invoices to government institutions via the PEPPOL Network.
The tax authority has acknowledged that this will instigate a radical overhaul in the way people work- and have therefore responded by outlining a phased approach for implementation, in line with the following:
• Large companies- mandatory to use e-invoicing from 18 May 2022;
• Medium companies- mandatory to use e-invoicing from 18 October 2022;
• Small companies: mandatory to use e-invoicing from 18 March 2023.
It is hoped that the phased implementation will allow companies to adapt their working models to accommodate B2G e-invoicing.
New e-archiving obligations were introduced in Italy on 1st January 2022. These new obligations relate to the training, management and storage of documents issued by the Agency for Digital Italy, as well as specific information relating to metadata. These guidelines replace previous archiving regulations on the storage of tax documents. Tungsten Network is compliant with all archiving obligations further to the introduction of these changes.
The Romanian government published Emergency Ordinance number 130/2021 on 18 December 2021, which states that ‘high fiscal risk products’ must soon be issued through the RO e-Factura. The Emergency Ordinance provides a few key dates:
• A voluntary phase from 1st April 2022 to 30 June 2022;
• This then becomes mandatory from 1st July 2022.
The requirement to issue B2B invoices through the RO e-Factura is currently optional- and both the supplier and the buyer must be registered through the RO e-Factura to do so. However, requirements will be much more demanding from 1st July 2022 for transactions involving high risk fiscal products – these must be issued through the RO e-Factura, regardless of whether the buyer is registered in the RO e-invoice registry or not.
Affected taxpayers must ensure that they have the technical infrastructure to issue invoices in XML format, in accordance with the technical and usage specifications of the RO_CIUS electronic invoice in Romania.
The National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) have provided 5 categories that come under the definition of a high-risk fiscal product- these are fairly wide in scope:
• Certain foods (including fruit and vegetables, amongst others)
• Alcoholic beverages
• New constructions
• Mineral products
• Clothing and footwear
ANAF plans to update this list regularly.
Tungsten is monitoring developments in Romania and what this means for our solution.
Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) announced violations and penalties of the first phase of e-invoicing (Generation Phase), which took effect on 4th December 2021.
Businesses who fail to issue and archive electronic invoices are subject to a fine between SAR 5,000- 50,000. In addition, the authority may issue a warning for not including the QR code on simplified tax invoices, not including the VAT registration number on the e-invoices where required, and failing to inform ZATCA of any malfunction that hinders the issuance of e-invoice. Amendment and deletion of e-invoices after issuance will also trigger a fine between SAR 10,000 – 50,000.
ZATCA has also clarified that all fines are applied depending on the types of violation and the number of times it has been committed. The penalties for first-time violations are likely to be modest, while repeat violations will attract higher fines.
China has launched a new pilot programme introducing “Fully digitalized e-invoice”, this is an important initiative to comprehensively promote the digital upgrade and intelligent transformation of tax collection and management, with the goal of achieving 100% invoice digitalization across the country by 2025. The pilot was first implemented on 1st December 2021, with selected taxpayers in Shanghai, Guangdong, and Inner Mongolia.
There are two types of fully digitalized e-invoice: fully digitalized special VAT e-invoice and fully digitalized general VAT e-invoice, which have the same legal effect as the paper invoice and the normal e-invoice currently in use. To remind you of the differences between General and Special VAT invoices:
- General VAT Invoice: This invoice type does not allow for VAT deduction and is typically used for B2C and tax-free transactions. The General VAT Invoice is a simplified invoice type and paperless has been allowed for years for general VAT invoices
- Special VAT Invoice: This invoice types allows for VAT deduction, and is typically used for B2B transactions
A major upgrade in this pilot is the elimination of special tax control equipment (e.g. UKEY), pilot taxpayers will instead use a national unified e-tax service platform to issue, deliver and validate e-Fapiao24/7 for free. Once the invoice data is entered in the system, the platform will issue a unique invoice number, meaning that taxpayers no longer need to apply for invoices via their local tax bureau. In addition, this platform creates a Tax Digital Account for each taxpayer, which automatically collects invoice data, allowing taxpayers to search, print, and download invoices from the platform.
The e-tax service platform aims to serve as a one-stop shop for all invoicing needs, it will be also available in the form of software and mobile app in the near feature. Furthermore, this pilot has abolished the OFD file format requirements, pilot taxpayers can send the fully digitalized e-invoice through their Tax Digital Account, QR code, or by email.
While fully digitalized e-invoice is still in the pilot stage, we expect widespread promotion and implementation soon. It is recommended that enterprises continue to pay close attention to the latest developments and evaluate the potential impact on their business. Of course, Tungsten Network will stay close to China’s e-invoicing pilots, and we will keep you up to speed.
While Serbia has made its intention to expand the use of e-invoicing in the country clear, the Minister of Finance has acknowledged that there will be a need to adapt to the new system. Therefore, there will be a transition period until the end of April 2022. This means that the obligation of the public sector to receive and keep electronic invoices and to issue invoices to another public entity will apply from 1 May 2022, rather than 1 January 2022.
We earlier communicated around several other timeframes relating to Serbian e-invoicing and we still expect this to stand:
- the obligation of the private sector entity to receive and keep the electronic invoice issued by the public sector entity, as well as the electronic invoices issued by the private sector entity, will apply from July 1, 2022;
- the obligations of issuing and keeping electronic invoices in transactions between private sector entities take effect from January 1, 2023
The e-invoice logical structure is now available on the Central Repository of Electronic Document patterns on the ePUAP platform. This covers the following changes:
- descriptions of member country codes and currency codes
- the definition of the TAdres element, including adding a new TGLN type
- adding the TZnakowy20 element
- TNumerKSeF element definition
- the definition of selected character elements to the integer type
- entering the maximum number of occurrences of some elements, eg Transport, Shipment by update of descriptions of some elements, eg P_15, P_18A adding new grouping elements, e.g. Partial Payments, PlanDates, Agreements, Orders.
These are applicable from 1 January 2022. Note that the use of e-invoicing in Poland will remain voluntary until 01/01/2023.
Spain is making some strides with B2B e-invoicing, building on earlier work undertaken for B2G transactions. The draft law ‘Creation and Growth of companies’ is currently work in progress in the Spanish Parliament, awaiting final approval. Tungsten will keep you informed of any developments.
France has requested authorisation from the EU commission to derogate from Articles 218 and 232 of the VAT Directive to be able to impose mandatory electronic invoicing to all taxable persons established in France. The authorisation to derogate would apply from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026.
This proposal is currently under review with the European Commission. Please refer to this document.
Slovenia is very close to introducing mandatory B2B e-invoicing. A draft law was presented to the Ministry of Finance in June 2021. This draft law is currently awaiting approval in the Slovenian Parliament, and Tungsten is monitoring developments.
Governments introduce continuous transaction controls (CTC) to more effectively counter tax fraud and increase revenue. As part of introducing CTCs in their mandates, governments often require invoice data to be sent to tax authorities in real-time or require invoices to be cleared by the government before they are paid.
Germany is planning to introduce CTCs to this effect. There are no specific details, but Tungsten will keep up to date with any development around this.
Tax authorities in Panama are aspiring to introduce an e-invoicing system, known as Sistema de Facturacion Electronica de Panama (SFEP). Taxpayers have a few ways to comply with this e-invoicing system, which includes:
- Using the free e-invoicing platform available on the Tax Authority Website (this is applicable to smaller taxpayers);
- Adapting a data connection device to current tax printers;
- Migrate to an e-invoicing system where taxpayer can issue e-invoices through service providers accredited by the government (PAC).
We are awaiting further information from the Panamanian Tax Authorities regarding potential pilots, timeframes for implementation, and the scope of taxpayers affected, and will keep you updated.
Real-time reporting of invoice data is gaining momentum in Slovakia. As with many countries, the underlying push for this appears to be related to the need to reduce tax fraud and improve the efficiency of tax collection, and to overhaul the current SAF-T system, which can incur time delays. With the proposed system, data would be required to be reported in real-time before the invoice is sent to the customer.
A draft Act is due to be submitted for feedback shortly relating to invoicing and reporting data. The new law would include an obligation to report structured invoice data to the Financial Administration (FA) on a real-time basis, drawing some parallels with countries such as Hungary adopting a similar approach. The proposed date for implementation is 2023.
Slovakia aims to capture most taxpayers within the proposed changes with only minor exceptions, irrespective of their VAT registration status.
Company accounting software or a free online application would assist in the reporting procedure. As a brief overview, the FA would verify this data and send a QR code to the supplier, which should be added to the invoice.
But it is not only suppliers who are affected. Customers would also be affected. Customers would need to send data from received invoices before VAT deduction. Any breaches of the law could be significant, resulting in fines up €10,000.
We previously advised that the ATCUD code on Portuguese invoices (as well as other fiscal documents) is now optional from 1 January 2022. This has now been officially confirmed by Order 351/2021-XXII. Previously, it had been announced that it would be mandatory from 1 January 2022.
We also recently published an update advising that Portugal had extended the period unsigned PDFs could be accepted as an e-invoice. This had previously been extended to 31 December 2021; this has now been further extended to 30 June 2022, by virtue of Order 351/2021-XXII, at which point PDFs must be digitally signed.