Text file: 4927.txt
author: abria
downvotes: 0
end consideration date: 2013-09-11
id: '4927'
number comments: 3
number views: 2099
proposal type: Competent authority response
response: "Response from the Ministry of Finance\nA fundamental issue with electronic\
  \ invoices and tax cash registers is how to ensure the security and correctness\
  \ of electronic data in an acceptable way. In this context, each country often imposes\
  \ its own technical requirements, which can make it difficult for entrepreneurs\
  \ to do business in an international environment. Most SMEs do not currently issue\
  \ e-invoices. They issue invoices on paper or send them by email as plain files,\
  \ which of course does not comply with security standards, but is easy and works.\
  \ It is necessary to realise that today's economy operates in a global environment\
  \ in which any ill-considered move can make it less competitive. In Slovenia, as\
  \ in most other countries, e-invoicing is voluntary. The State encourages e-invoicing,\
  \ but also allows other forms of e-invoicing, recognising that the basic mission\
  \ of entrepreneurship is a simple and transparent business environment that enables\
  \ entrepreneurs to grow and develop.\nThe EU started to regulate e-invoicing several\
  \ years ago, when a number of actors called for action at European level to stimulate\
  \ an EU-wide e-invoicing market. Existing national regimes are mostly based on national\
  \ standards, which are most often not interoperable. As such, they increase complexity\
  \ and costs for businesses, creating barriers to market access. The end result is\
  \ that e-invoicing in Europe is still very limited, accounting for between 4 and\
  \ 15% of all invoices exchanged. In its Communication \"Reaping the benefits of\
  \ e-invoicing in Europe\" (COM(2010) 712), the Commission called for e-invoicing\
  \ to become the dominant invoicing method in the EU by 2020. The European Parliament\
  \ Resolution of April 2012 called for e-invoicing to become mandatory in public\
  \ procurement by 2016, and the Informal Competition Council of February 2012 and\
  \ the European Council Conclusions of June 2012 called on Member States to take\
  \ measures to promote e-invoicing and to remove barriers to market access caused\
  \ by insufficient interoperability of e-invoicing.\nIn the Law on Value Added Tax\
  \ (Official Journal of the Republic of Slovenia, No 13/11 - Officially Consolidated\
  \ Text, 18/11, 78/11, 38/12 and 83/12; hereafter. ZDDV-1) already introduces equivalent\
  \ treatment of electronic and paper invoices. Pursuant to Article 84 of the VAT\
  \ Act, an electronic invoice is an invoice containing all the information required\
  \ by the VAT Act and issued and received in any electronic form. An invoice issued\
  \ in any form (electronic or paper) must guarantee the authenticity of its origin,\
  \ the integrity of its content and the legibility of the invoice from the moment\
  \ of issue until the end of the period of storage of the invoice. This provision\
  \ is primarily intended to encourage the use of electronic invoicing by reducing\
  \ the administrative burden on taxable persons.\nWith regard to your proposal on\
  \ tax cash registers, we would like to clarify that the Ministry of Finance is closely\
  \ monitoring the problem of tax evasion in cash transactions, but is not limiting\
  \ its search for solutions to this measure. In the area of erasure and manipulation\
  \ of taxpayers' turnover data, new tax legislation entered into force on 1 July\
  \ 2013, which stipulates that taxpayers may not have or use computer programmes\
  \ that allow any subsequent modification of data without an audit trail. The same\
  \ applies to manufacturers or suppliers of software and hardware, who are not allowed\
  \ to allow taxable persons to use software or equipment that allows subsequent modification\
  \ of data without keeping the original data. Higher fines have been imposed for\
  \ tax offences related to electronic data processing: from \u20AC20,000 to \u20AC\
  70,000 for sole traders, from \u20AC50,000 to \u20AC150,000 for micro and small\
  \ taxable persons and from \u20AC70,000 to \u20AC250,000 for medium and large taxable\
  \ persons. The whole set of measures represents an alternative to the introduction\
  \ of cash registers, which has been proposed on several occasions in the past, and\
  \ in this respect also responds to warnings from the business community that it\
  \ is not appropriate to impose an additional burden on economic operators by requiring\
  \ them to purchase new equipment. These measures will have the positive effect of\
  \ reducing the potential for tax evasion at almost zero cost for taxable persons\
  \ who are in business. The new regime, together with the reinforced media campaign,\
  \ the introduction of a system for sending photographs of invoices via free MMS\
  \ messages, the announced control activities and the publication of the control\
  \ results, are key to achieving the principle of lawful and timely compliance and\
  \ payment of tax obligations and thus to increasing the level of voluntary compliance\
  \ with tax obligations. The presence of inspectors on the ground has been reinforced.\
  \ Rapid tax inspections of cash operations, stock counts, computer forensics (extraction\
  \ of data from taxable persons' computers) are being stepped up. Further measures\
  \ in the area of cash operations will be developed on the basis of an analysis of\
  \ the effectiveness of the current measures to prevent erasure and tampering of\
  \ turnover data.\n "
response date: 2013-10-01
response due date: null
sent date: 2013-08-13
title: Possibility of electronic invoicing with the introduction of cash registers
upvotes: 20
url: https://predlagam.vladi.si/predlog/4927
