Compliance Category: Actualizaciones de los países

Supporting business adoption of e-invoicing

In the 2021-22 Budget, the government invests another $15.3 million in the Digital Economy Strategy to increase the value of e-invoicing to businesses, improve business awareness, and accelerate e-invoicing adoption. However, according to feedback from Stakeholder Consultation in 2020-21, e-invoicing adoption remains low in Australia despite strong government support.

To further support business adoption of e-invoicing, the Australian Government has launched a public consultation seeking stakeholder views. If you would like to express your views on e-invoicing, you can submit responses up until 25 February 2022. For further information, please refer to the Australian government website.

PEPPOL – CTC Reference model issued

PEPPOL has now issued the first edition of the Continuous Transactions Control (CTC) Reference Document and are inviting feedback from interested parties.
Governments around the world introduce CTCs 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.
Peppol’s document includes analysis from several implementations around the world. The document can be found via this link.

EU Commission work program 2022

The EU has been working towards the modernisation of current VAT rules in the commission Work Programme 2022. This Programme highlighted the importance of taking the opportunity to use digital solutions as a means to achieve this. As part of their action plan, they have announced a legislative proposal for 2022, covering VAT obligations and e-invoicing.
Further details can be found on the report published on their website.

Launch of the online Simplified Tax System (STS)

The Russian Ministry of Finance (MinFin) recently published the General Tax Policy Guidelines for 2022-2024. One of the items highlighted within this relates to the launch of the online simplified tax system (STS)- viewed as a major overhaul of the tax administration.
The STS will take on tax accounting, and be accessible to micro-enterprises with:

  • A headcount of no more than five, and
  • Annual revenues of no more than RUB 60 million.

The tax authorities will not however take over all fiscal obligations- they will not keep or fill out tax returns. Enterprises will remain responsible for calculating the tax, based on data from cash registers and bank accounts.

New Industry Efforts to Propel B2B Payments Toward Modernization

The Federal Reserve and the Business Payment Coalition (BPC) recently announced that 73 organizations will work together to develop an industrial pilot operational exchange framework that will enable companies to share electronic invoices.
The E-invoice Exchange Market Pilot and the Remittance Delivery Assessment Work Group aim to modernise B2B payments resulting in faster timeframes. Advantages of this modernisation include lower costs, better cash management, error reduction, risk mitigation, increased transparency and improved efficiency.

Draft law extending current B2G mandate to specific B2B transactions – public consultation open

Spain’s e-invoicing landscape looks like it may be expanding into the B2B sector, for transactions between companies and the self-employed

The Spanish government recently announced a draft law for ‘Creation and Growth of Companies’. This covers many elements- one being the proposal to extend the obligation to exchange invoices for B2B transactions as well as B2G transactions.

The public consultation for this is open until 6 September 2021.

Option to use PDF e-invoices extended to 31 December 2021

Portugal has previously communicated the admissibility of invoices in PDF format as electronic invoices. Order no. 260/2021-XX11, dated 27th July 2021, has extended this permissibility until 31 December 2021. This had previously been extended until 30 September 2021.

PDFs must be digitally signed from January 2022.

Looking to achieve nationwide coverage of fapiao digitisation by 2025

China has set to roll out e-special VAT fapiao to all taxpayers by the end of 2021, with the expectation to achieve nationwide e-fapiao coverage by 2025.

The STA (State Tax Administration) has launched a public e-invoicing platform aiming to provide free e-invoicing support 24/7 (inv-veri.chinatax.gov.cn). Suppliers/Buyers can access this website to:

  • perform validation checks on both paper and electronic invoices issued within the last 5 years. Each invoice can only be checked 5 times per day.
  • download relevant certificates and software, e.g. OFD reader, e-invoice generator for UKEY users.
  • learn more about e-invoicing in china via online resources, e.g. how to identify the validity of paper fapiao.

It’s noticeable that this platform has access restrictions to foreign browsers and may not work on Apple IOS systems.

Implementation SAF-T as from 1 January 2022

The National Agency for Fiscal Administration (“NAFA”) has started the implementation of SAF-T in Romania.

The preliminary SAF-T structure was published in April 2021, while the related guidance and legislation is expected to be published this summer. The SAF-T related software at NAFA’s level is expected to be finalised by the end of July 2021, allowing voluntary testing together with large taxpayers to be performed during August – December 2021. January 2022 will be the first reporting month for large Romanian taxpayers, and SAF-T reporting periods will follow the VAT reporting period (e.g. monthly or quarterly).

The technical specifications have been released and can be found on the ANAF portal.

Further details of new ‘Qualified Invoice Retention System’

Japan will introduce a new qualified invoice regime for Japanese Consumption Tax (JCT) with effect from 1 October 2023. This will bring the JCT regime more closely in line with European-style VAT regimes, and in order to claim input tax credit, the purchaser will be required to retain ‘qualified invoices’ issued by ‘qualified invoice issuers’. Only taxable persons are eligible to register as qualified invoice issuers, and cannot be JCT exempt enterprises (i.e. they cannot be exempt from the obligation to file a JCT return and remit JCT). Unlike the current system, this requirement applies even if the enterprise’s taxable sales for the base period are JPY 10 million or less. Registration to become a qualified invoice issuer opens on 1 October 2021.

New VAT return as of 1 January 2022

The Tax Authorities have announced that a new VAT return will be introduced that will replace the current, manual VAT return, effective 1st January 2022. The new VAT return will be based on the SAF-T codes and will include approximately 30 boxes as opposed to the 19 boxes in the current VAT return. The Norwegian Tax authorities aim for a direct transfer from the company’s accounting system to altinn. It will however still be possible to fill out and submit the VAT return manually as per the current process.

Non-resident billing software certification from 1 July 2021

To combat tax evasion and fraud, the Portuguese Tax Authorities have defined some rules that billing systems must fulfil to ensure the non-violation of billing data once it is registered.

This means that only billing systems that fulfil the requirements defined in law and which are certified by the PTA can be used.

This will be effective from 1st July 2021. These new measures will also apply to non-resident businesses that are registered for VAT in Portugal with a turnover exceeding 50,000 Euros in the calendar year 2020. This means that these entities are required to use exclusively billing systems certified by the PTA for issuing invoices and other relevant tax documents.

There are a few options to business how to go about this- including choosing to have their own software certified, using third-party pre-certified software or outsourcing the process.

Compliance relief offered in light of Covid-19 pandemic

In light of the severity of the Covid-10 pandemic in India, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has introduced several compliance reliefs for taxpayers.

These include the following:

  • There will be no late fees for delayed filing of GSTR-3B of March/April, up to 15 days and 30 days from the original due date for Taxpayers with turnover more than INR 5 Crores and up to INR 5 Crores respectively. In addition to this, for the quarter ending 31 March 2021, no late fees will be charged if GSTR-3B is filed within 30 days from the original due date.
  • The due date to file GSTR-4 is extended to 31 May 2021.
  • The due date to file ITC-04 is extended to 31 May 2021 (for the quarter: January-March 2021).
  • The due date to file GSTR-1 for April 2021 is extended to 26 May 2021 and for IFF the due date is extended to 28 May 2021.
  • Due date for all other proceedings, asset order, etc., whose last date of completion falls between 15 April to 30 May is extended to 31 May 2021.

Click here to learn more about the Indian mandate.