E-invoicing was introduced in Peru in 2010, following the continuous transaction controls (CTC) trend in Latin American countries for a more efficient collection of consumption taxes. Since then, the government has rolled out measures to encompass a significant number of taxpayers under the country’s mandatory e-invoicing regime and advance new technical and institutional structures within its System of Electronic Emissions (SEE – Sistema de Emisión Electrónica).
June 2022 marked the final deadline for including the last group of taxpayers in the country’s e-invoicing mandate. However, the government continues to expand its system, with the latest update proposed by a draft resolution introducing important changes to the Peruvian e-transport document, the Guía de Remisión electronica – GRE.
Changes in the E-transport Document
The Peruvian tax authority (SUNAT) published on 2 June 2022 a draft resolution introducing changes to the GRE, the electronic transport document that must be issued in connection to invoices (comprobantes de pagos) for the control of goods under transportation. The GRE is only vital while the goods are in transit but is a document commonly kept by companies to maintain internal controls of transported goods.
The new draft resolution aims to regulate the issuance of the e-transport document further, introducing several changes, mainly to optimise the control of goods and eliminate the use of paper.
Among the many changes introduced by the draft, the main are:
- The GRE remitente (issued by the sender) and transportista (issued by the transporter) must be issued exclusively through the taxpayer’s invoice issuance system (SEE del contribuyente) or the Sunat Portal (SEE-SOL)
- A QR code is introduced as the main support document (sustento de traslado) for transporting goods
- A new type of e-transport document, the guía de remisión por evento is created
- Creation of a new catalogue of measure units and related documents applicable only to GREs
- Rules for electronic issuance of the GRE transportista, previously issued in paper format only
What this means for taxpayers
Taxpayers must be ready to issue GREs remitente and transportista exclusively through their own systems using a software provider (PSE – proveedores de servicios electrónicos) or the SUNAT Portal. This requirement may represent quite the impact on taxpayers that regularly issue a large volume of GREs through the electronic services operator’s channel, the SEE-OSE (Operador de Servicios Electrónicos).
The most impactful change, however, is that taxpayers will only be able to use the GRE as a support document for the transport of goods. Under current legislation, besides the GRE, the factura guía and the liquidacion de compras, which are regular invoices with additional transport information, can also be used to support transporting goods. Issuance of the factura guía is a common practice since it entails the generation of one single document that serves both the sales transaction and transportation. However, the draft resolution only allows the use of the GRE for this purpose.
The introduction of the QR code is the government’s approach to a modern and efficient control method. The bidimensional code is generated by SUNAT once the CDR (constancia de recepción) acquires accepted status and may be presented in either digital or printed format.
Although taxpayers may still support transportation by providing their registration number (RUC), the series and the GRE number, it is expected that the QR code will become the principal method to support transit, and the RUC will only be used as a contingency method.
A new type of e-transport document has also been introduced. The guía de remisión por evento may only be issued through the SUNAT Portal and is used to complement a previously issued GRE in the case of unforeseeable events not attributable to the issuer. In these cases, current regulation supports the transfer with the same document. The draft resolution, however, requires that the GRE por evento is issued before restarting the transportation of goods.
Another change that taxpayers must be aware of, as it might give rise to complex scenarios, is the creation of a new catalogue of measure units applicable only to GREs, found in Annex III. The already existent measure unit catalogues for all other invoices will not apply to the GRE, which is bound to cause a lack of uniformity since the same concept would use two different catalogues.
Rollout Dates
The draft resolution sets 13 July 2022 as its date of entry into force when taxpayers already in the scope of the GRE may start to issue through the appropriate channels and voluntarily start using the QR code as the support for transportation.
However, until 30 September 2022, taxpayers may exceptionally issue GREs remitente through the SEE-OSE, considering the conditions and requirements in place before the publication of the resolution. The draft also establishes a list of certain taxpayers (issuers and transporters) who will become obliged to issue the GRE and the corresponding dates, in Annex X, according to taxpayer types and the goods in transport, starting 1 January 2023.
What’s Next?
As this is a draft resolution, the changes only become definite with the official publication of the final version of the resolution. However, as 13 July 2022 approaches, the resolution is expected to be published in the following weeks. Therefore, taxpayers who are already under the obligation to issue GREs must be ready to comply with the new mandates within a month.
SUNAT accepts comments to the draft resolution, which can be sent via email until 16 June 2022, to the following address: RPATRICI@sunat.gob.pe.
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