Compliance Services

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.

The Romanian government has introduced Government Emergency Ordinance no. 120/2021 which regulates B2G e-invoicing. Taxpayers in the B2B sphere can also now choose to issue and send invoices through the RO e-invoicing system, but it is not yet mandatory to do so.

Tungsten is monitoring developments in the Romania B2B landscape and will keep you updated.

The Minister of Finance Order no. 1366/2021 has also approved the core invoice usage specifications (RO_CIUS) for e-invoicing. These specific operational rules are compliant with the SR EN 16931-1 European standard for e-invoicing. This Order contains the core invoice usage specifications for e-invoices and how to use them.

We have provided some guidance around the Carta Porte – the new transportation notes that forms part of the CFDI. An updated version of the Complemento Carta Porte version 2.0 was published on the Mexican Tax Administration (SAT) website. This is mandatory from 1 January 2022. The updated version can be found here.

Tungsten has processed all the updated changes in our system, including the updated error codes, and we can process the updated Carta Complemento version.

While the Mexican Government was still making changes through December 2021, we were working urgently to analyse what this means for Tungsten customers. As a reminder, a testing period began on 1 January 2022, up until 1 May 2022, at which point it will be mandatory to use the CFDI 4.0. It is still possible that the timelines will change. During the testing phase, both CFDI versions (3.3 and 4.0) can be used.

The new CFDI 4.0 version can be found on the Mexican government website.

The European Directive 2014/55/EU on e-invoicing for public procurement had already taken effect in law but was not yet implemented in VAT legislation. As a result, the Council of Ministers recently approved a draft Royal Decree on B2G e-invoicing which has now been submitted to the Council of State.

We recently published an update relating to Belgium’s intention to mandate B2B e-invoicing- and it looks like this is increasingly gaining more impetus. The Belgian Minister of Finance has reinforced Belgium’s intention to make e-invoicing mandatory in his policy note. This intention is mainly triggered by the need to reduce the VAT gap. Belgium’s VAT gap is high- amounting to 3.6 billion Euros, or 10.4% of the total VAT revenue, and mandatory e-invoicing is seen as a means to overcome this deficit.

This is still at early stages- no timeframes have yet been announced, and there are not yet any suggested working models for a potential e-invoicing mandate. However, it is difficult to ignore the increasing popularity of PEPPOL in Belgium in recent years- and so it seems likely that Belgium will rely on a similar model for its own e-invoicing mandate, drawing on its own experiences with PEPPOL to help build an e-invoicing model.

The full policy note can be found here.

The derogation from Articles 218 and 232 of the VAT Directive meant Italy could continue to mandate e-invoicing until 31 December 2021. Italy has requested to apply for an extension to apply the B2B e-invoicing mandate until 2024.
On 13 December 2021, the European Commission approved the authorisation for Italy to continue to apply the B2B mandate until the end of 2024.

There are new VAT obligations applicable to certain retailers in Italy from 1 January 2022. These new obligations were originally scheduled for 1 October 2021 but delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

All retailers who are affected need to update their electronic registers for the transmission of daily transactions and VAT liabilities, resulting in greater visibility for tax authorities. Cash machine producers can carry out the required adjustments.

Retailers affected are:

• All retailers subject to the 2019 internet-linked cash register transaction reporting* (see below);
• Both residents and non-residents;
• With a turnover of more than 400K Euros per year.

*In 2019, Italy introduced new regulations which meant certain retailers were required to transmit their daily takings to the Italian Internal Revenue Agency via the internet for goods and services sales with VAT applied. For businesses with a turnover of over 400K Euros per year, this requirement was introduced from July 2019; it was extended to other businesses on 1 January 2020.

The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) has developed the “SDK (Software Development Kit) Toolkit”, which enables taxpayers and developers of e-invoicing solutions to verify the compliance of generated e-invoices, credit, and debit notes, as well as the respective QR codes generated, against the e invoicing standards, specifications and regulations published by ZATCA.

A user manual is also available to guide users through the technical and functional aspects of the Compliance and Enablement Toolbox SDK such as what is the SDK, how to use it, and how to install it. To download the user manual and the SDK Toolkit, please access this page.

The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) published the guidelines for generating and printing QR codes on electronic tax invoices on 18 November 2021. The guide provides some further information on the QR code specification, Tag-Length-Value (TLV), how to create a TLV, code snippets as well as some details on the representation of QR code data.

For the full guideline, please visit: QRCodeCreation.pdf (zatca.gov.sa). Note that the use of QR codes on Tax Invoices will become mandatory from 01/01/23. QR codes are required on Simplified Invoices from 04/12/2021.