The Business Payments Coalition, with support from the Federal Reserve, will begin recruiting for a Market Pilot Work Group. This group will build and test a virtual network that will enable businesses to exchange e-invoices. Interested stakeholders will be needed to develop and test the open-source tools and access points to be used in the pilot.
Compliance Category: Country updates
The use of Italy’s new Fattura XML format was originally mandatory from January 1, 2021 but was delayed until end of February 21. However, Italy has now again extended for the third time the newest rules relating to SDI invoices, The date from which the usage of the Fattura XML 1.6 becomes obligatory has been moved from 28th February 2021 to June 2021.
Tungsten Network has been ready for the new XML format from the voluntary introduction in September 2020.
The Ministry of Finance in Slovakia will soon start a consultation process regarding e-invoicing. As a result of this, the government aims to:
• Simplify the current VAT declaration system;
• Reduce fraud;
• Reduce the administrative burden for businesses.
Public law entities and solution providers in the IT sectors will be contacted during the consultations to draw up a draft legislative text with their input.
The Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait announced on 3 March 2021 that registered taxpayers in Egypt who wish to join the e-invoicing system are able to do so until 15 May 2021.
The e-invoicing system should allow the Egyptian tax authorities to follow up all commercial transactions between companies, as the data of all invoices will be exchanged digitally and instantly. The Minister hopes e-invoicing can help eliminate the informal economy of Egypt.
The Secretary of Tax Affairs stated in November 2020, that PDF invoices will still be deemed as electronic for tax and legal purposes, until March 2021.
This has now been extended from 31 March 2021 to 30 June 2021.
The start date for the mandatory transmission of tax documents’ date has already been postponed several times, with the last postponement to 1 July 2021.
It is important to note than none of the postponements left taxpayers ‘off the hook’ completely as the Greek tax office (AADE) considers the delays as grace period. The data that was generated in the grace period must still be submitted to the authorities through the myDATA platform by 31 October 2021.
In December, China’s State Taxation Administration (STA) announced further expansion of the trial programme (Pilot) to 38 regions in the country. The pilot enables specific Chinese taxpayers to issue VAT special electronic invoices on voluntary basis. The pilot project started in September 2020.
The Polish Ministry of Finance published draft tax legislation on 12th February, under which UK and Norwegian based companies will not be obliged to appoint fiscal representation in Poland.
This important decision is mainly due to adequate agreements for mutual assistance being in place between countries. These agreements arrange administrative cooperation and collaboration to fight against VAT fraud. The legislation comes into force retrospectively with an effective date of January 1, 2021.
China’s e-invoicing pilot for Special VAT invoices is gaining traction quickly. The pilot was already live in 11 regions and has now been extended into another 25 regions. The project is somewhat delayed; e-invoicing is now expected to be available countrywide in the course of 2021. (The original plan was to have full country coverage by the end of 2020).
The Special VAT e-invoicing initiative aims to replace the existing Fapiao process, which is fully paper-based, and which requires taxpayers to use government pre-numbered invoices and visit local tax offices to produce such invoices.
Businesses are typically selected and certified for the pilot. Certified companies use the State “Public Service Platform of Electronic VAT Invoice” using their ‘U Key’ login terminal, which is a hardware component provided by local tax offices. On the Public Service Platform taxpayers request approval for the type and number of sales invoices they will issue in a certain period. The Public Platform is also used for the permanent storage of invoices. Invoice corrections (credit notes) can also be issued using the Service Platform (using red-lined special Fapiaos).
As the VIES VAT identification check will no longer be available in UK post Brexit, HMRC has launched its own VAT identification validation checker. To access the tool, please follow this link.
The Romanian Finance Minister has announced that the Romanian government intends to introduce an e-invoicing system. Currently, there is no more information available. We will monitor the announcements and report on further progress in the upcoming compliance updates.
The Hungarian tax authority recently published a new file structure that will be the basis for online invoice data reporting in 2021. The new file structure is XSD version 3.0.
The Chinese State Tax Administration (STA) provided a public update on multiple tax-related topics, including a development plan for electronic special VAT invoices.
After several years of collaboration, we can officially announce that a usage permit between Unilever and Tungsten was finally granted in early January 2020.
The proposed introduction of an annual billing and accounting SAF-T report has been postponed and is now expected to be introduced in 2019, with an obligation to report 2018 data.
Fundamental changes to the VAT Act were due to come into force on 1 January 2018. However, this has been postponed until July 2018.