Beneath the glow of Christmas lights, so clear, A hope for ease in tax, we hold it dear. Officials huddle, warm, with festive cheer, To cut the VAT gap, their goal this year. In merry times, we speak of burdens light, E-invoicing’s not the sole fight. For fraud, a broader plan must take flight, And in this Yuletide, may they see the light. With negotiations through the snow, A better path they seek to know.

There is a lurking issue in many real-time reporting systems that depend on either trusted parties or trusting the government with all the invoice data. We believe neither approach is ideal, so we came up with a better alternative. We developed a tool that can automatically audit all e-Invoice extractions and conversions, and attach a cryptographic signature to the extraction. This signature is then sent either to the Tax Administration or any other system managing the real-time reporting.

Introduction In this episode of VAT Talks we had the opportunity to discuss Swiss Taxation on NFTs with Cyrill Diefenbacher Could you tell us more about yourself and how you ended up in the field of taxation? I studied law at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and finished my studies there with a master’s degree. Subsequently, I joined KPMG where I worked for six years in the Corporate Tax Team and obtained the Swiss certified tax expert degree.

During the IDSt event in Berlin on the 16th of November, Agustín Míguez Pérez presented the potential directive which is a result of the “VAT in the Digital Age” Initiative. It was meant to be the official presentation but unfortunately due to political circumstances it had to be postponed to next month. Although he could not share everything with us, he was kind enough to give us a good overview of what might come.

We’re honoured that John McCallig, Assistant Professor in the Accountancy Subject Area at the University College Dublin Business School, wanted to talk about VAT, real-time reporting and encryption with us! John does not only have extensive knowledge of the accounting area, but also did extensive research into modern cryptography. For his work on applying cryptography to VAT he even was awarded with the NovaUCD invention of the year award.

Introduction The Organisation for Economic Development Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently published a report about e-invoicing. The aim of the report is “to set out some of the core elements of existing “electronic invoicing” systems, and to draw “out some considerations for those exploring possible implementation or reform of such systems”. In the following we address some key findings of the report and will provide our analyses. Getting the definitions straight We have stressed it quite often, for example here, e-invoicing is something different than real-time reporting.

Introduction Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have attracted the interest of investors and the public in the last couple of years because of their skyrocketing price and the possibility of producing revenues for the artists. The increasing price of NFTs has made it apparently also interesting enough for governments to try to levy VAT on these digital assets. In the following, we will analyse how the VAT legislation is being extended in Spain to NFTs and the legal feasibility of this purpose.

Introduction With the rise of cyberattacks, encryption is becoming increasingly important in order to secure business-relevant, public-important or private-sensitive information. More and more companies are adding encryption technology to their security standards. Nevertheless, not all encryption solutions are the same. One important difference is between a form of encryption where secured data is still available to intermediaries and one where data is only available to its owner. The latter would be particularly important in real-time reporting systems, where huge amounts of taxpayers’ data is collected.

Introduction In this episode we had the pleasure to speak with Marloes Lammers and Vanessa Huygen van Dyck-Jagersma from HuygenLammers Advocaten. We’re very thankful that they want to share their knowledge which they gained by handling an enormous amount of VAT fraud cases. We discussed the “knew and should have known” principle, we spoke about the so-called “hit day”, and they explained why engaging in a professional relationship is comparable to marrying someone.

Introduction Recently the European Commission published the long awaited VAT in the Digital Age report. In the following we will discuss and analyse the central finding of the report treating Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR). We argue that the impact of real-time reporting and “e-invoicing” (definition is discussed below) can potentially be quite similar, contrary to the authors of the report. Furthermore, we show how summitto’s solution is a confidential solution for the future VAT system.