Compliance Services

Poland has recently announced it will be able to select its own VAT rates. There is a wait for this to be adopted but this is believed to be a formality only. This may result in several VAT rate changes in Poland. Tungsten has a big customer base in Poland and will ensure that any appropriate action is taken to implement any new tax rates.

We are very closely monitoring developments in Poland – on the back of some recent political unrest in the country, it is expected that there may be some significant changes upcoming in 2022 – we will keep you updated.

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.

On 7 December 2021, the EU Council received an agreement to update EU rules on VAT, the purpose of which was to ensure that member states are treated equally, with the bonus of allowing more flexibility to apply reduced and zero rates. There is also a ‘green’ initiative behind the rules, to phase out preferential treatments for environmentally harmful goods.

The EU Council also updated the list of goods and services for which reduced VAT rates are allowed (Annex 111 of the VAT Directive). The Council decided to limit the number of items to which reduced rates could be applied, recognising that these could accumulate.

EU Member States have lost an estimated 134 billion euros in VAT revenues in 2019 according to the 2021 Report on the VAT Gap released by the European Commission. The VAT Gap did decrease between 2015-2019, but remains very significant. The report can be found here.

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.