I wanted to give a quick update on the Manifestação do Destinatário business process in Brazil as there have been a lot of questions lately on the topic. For many companies, this is now becoming mandatory. As one example, the legislation has been defined by the the states – both Rio Grande del Sul and Santa Catarina recently announced the business process is mandatory for Nota Fiscal (Invoices) over 100,000 Reais. Ensure you understand this process.
What is the Recipient Acknowledgement process?
Events allow a NF-e recipient to acknowledge their commercial participation in a business transaction by confirming the information provided in an Issuer’s tax document. This process has four events (translated from original Portuguese):
- Emission Acknowledgement
- Operation Confirmation
- Operation Registration Unfulfilled
- Operation Declined or Ignored
The Emission Acknowledgement event registers the NF-e recipient’s request to obtain the XML file. After registering this event, the recipient is allowed to download the XML.The Emission Acknowledgement event does not represent the recipient acknowledgement of the transaction; it only gives conditions for the recipient to retrieve the XML file. The event registers that the invoice recipient is aware that the document was issued, but has not yet expressed a conclusive acknowledgement that the transaction is legal and correct.
All the transactions that have an Emission Acknowledgement event should also have an additional event (one of the 3 Operations listed above)to record the conclusive acknowledgement of the operation by the recipient.
How does the “Confirmed Operation” event work?
The event will be recorded after the business transaction completes, which means that the transaction occurred as reported on the issued NF-e. If the invoice is issued for the transportation of goods, the date of the confirmation must occur after the physical entry of the goods in the recipient’s establishment. It is important to note that after the recipient confirms the operation, the Issuer can no longer cancel the NF-e. So the Emission Acknowledgement request, alone, does not inhibit suppliers from canceling the NF-e.
How does the “Operation Registration Unfulfilled” event work?
This event will be registered by the recipient when, for any reason, the operation legally agreed between the parties did not take place (goods returned to Issuer or damaged during transportation, etc.).
How does the “Operation Declined or Ignored” event work?
This event enables the recipient to express any misuse of their State Registration by an NF-e Issuer to cover up fraudulent operations of shipping goods to different recipients.This event protects the recipient from tax liabilities involving the misuse of their State Registration/CNPJ.
When you look at this process – the Brazil government is using the Nota Fiscal to accomplish some interesting goals:
- The SEFAZ servers now become an e-Invoicing Network — which is just another reason why you don’t see the “supplier” fee model working in Brazil
- The Goods Receipt transaction “confirmed operation” helps to eliminate goods moving into the black market after the point of delivery. They know you accepted those goods based on that transaction.
- And finally, it helps to eliminate corruption that was within the NFe process. Unscrupulous suppliers were using the CNPJ Tax Id of large buyers to register a NFe, print the DANFe and legally have their trucks on the road. The supplier would then cancel the transaction after shipping to an alternate location, and the buyer would be left with potential audit issues as the NFe was registered to the Buyer
