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The European Court of Justice has ruled, in Case C-288/16, that an exemption for services “directly connected” with exportation or importation of goods applies only if those services are supplied directly to the importer/exporter or to the consignee of the goods. The holding turned on the definition of the phrase “direct connection” within Article 146(1)(e) […]

No one really knows what percentage of today’s invoices are noncompliant with VAT law. Given the complexity and rate of change in VAT law, there is an almost unlimited set of possible nonconformities on the scale between outright fraud and clerical errors. One big problem is that it is often very difficult to gather all […]

Spain is quickly and steadily marching towards the planned July 1 implementation of the new Supply of Information System (locally known as SII) reporting requirement. Under the law, businesses have four days from the time an invoice is issued or received to notify the Spanish Tax Administration (AEAT) of the transaction. Determining the exact day […]

We have previously discussed how the Italian government is leveraging tax incentives to help boost e-invoicing adoption between private companies. After all, B2G e-invoicing has been mandatory in Italy for a couple of years now, but that has not led to a particularly impressive increase in the total amount of B2B e-invoices. Tax incentives that […]

Twenty years after IBM Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a series of famous chess games, another computer program, AlphaGo by Google DeepMind, won against Lee Sedol, a top professional player in the very complex ancient game of Go. In 2011, between these two landmarks, we saw IBM’s Watson win against former champions in Jeopardy. […]

E-invoicing clearance systems are increasingly being accepted and implemented worldwide. This development, with its origins in Latin America, is viewed by many market participants as potentially increasing tax compliance efficiency for businesses and public administrations alike. Mexico can be viewed as a relatively mature example of a clearance system. This country, where the tax administration […]

It has been a while since we posted news about Russia. To recap: e-invoicing is regulated but optional. Issuance is done via accredited operators, whereby both supplier and buyer must participate in a duplex clearance choreography. For more background, see previous posts. Interoperability across operators (called “roaming” in Russia – a misnomer) has been an […]

Pushed by fierce competition and under constant pressure from corporations to enable savings and optimize business processes, B2B transaction automation vendors are constantly looking into new features and functions to enhance the added value of their solutions. Many vendors in this space are developing into ‘business networks’ which go far beyond the early days of […]

[UPDATE – June 2017] The likely decision to postpone the implementation of changes in VAT reporting has now finally been announced. Hungary has now postponed the entry into force of this requirement by one year until July 2018 for two reasons: To actually get the technical specification published well in advance To give taxpayers and […]

Earlier this year we reported about the legal status and trends regarding scanning of inbound paper invoices in Europe. One of the topics raised in that post was that France was in the midst of legal reform in this area: for some time the French framework entirely prohibited the concept of conversion of form for […]

We are seeing a lot of vendor scope evolution on the market. Examples include EDI vendors that are developing business network-style services; another one is that platforms focused on procurement of indirect supplies are moving into strategic sourcing and vice versa. A trend that receives less attention from analysts and specialized press is the journey […]

Hungary’s tax authority announced in late 2016 that it would implement mandated real-time reporting starting July 1, 2017. As that date draws near, one certainty exists – companies with VAT liability in Hungary need to prepare now so they can nimbly adapt to new process and reporting requirements. As European governments trend toward electronic invoicing […]

During the past couple of months a number of significant changes have seemingly unnoticed entered into force in Estonia. Interestingly enough, Estonia seems to be the first EU Member State to by law require XML format for the exchange of B2B e-invoices, or rather require taxpayers to issue e-invoices using “machine-processable formats”. Only taxpayers who […]

There is much speculation about the potential of blockchain in the context of B2B automation. This speculation normally focuses on open or public blockchains, which are distributed databases where different types of transactions can be securely recorded and transparently verified by all parties without depending on a trusted third party. The scheme was first used […]

E-invoicing practitioners are well aware of the revolution that is caused by the imposition on businesses of messaging standards for purposes of tax ‘clearance’ and public procurement. Within the next decade, the business community as a whole will need to adapt to a parallel universe of standards designed for e-government transactional purposes. From what we’ve […]

In a previous post we informed that Peru has announced a radical change to its centralized e-invoicing framework turning it into a distributed one, whereby the tax authority SUNAT would delegate the clearance function to so-called Operators of Electronic Services (OSE). Recently SUNAT published draft legislation that provides technical and legal insight into this new […]

The Italian government has in recent years put in place a package of legal measures with the ambition of boosting the adoption of e-invoicing across all sectors and especially for SMEs. Not too long ago, the government went so far as to make the Sistema di Interscambio, the public platform used to issue B2G e-invoices […]

The rules on conversion of invoice form and format are not harmonized across the EU and EEA. Thus, even though the majority of these countries allow for an invoice to be converted from paper to electronic form upon receipt, and at the same time for discarding the paper version, this is often permitted only subject […]