Image: WiSo Nürnberg, FAU Introduction In this episode of VAT talks, we speak with Roland Ismer, tax law professor at the university of Erlangen-Nuremberg and one of the most prominent VAT specialists in Germany. With Roland, we analyse the latest developments connected to VAT and real-time reporting in Europe and Germany, where the new government coalition led by chancellor Olaf Scholz is planning to introduce a VAT reporting system. Come discover with us his view on data protection and the concept of balance between the interests of a functioning tax administration and those of the taxpayers.

Recently the winning parties of the German elections came to a coalition agreement. The SPD (social democrats), the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (greens) and the FDP (liberals) prepared a 177-page document to present their plans for a “free, just and sustainable” Germany. And lucky for our readers they also talk about VAT! More specifically, they intend to implement real-time reporting: “We will introduce a uniform nationwide electronic reporting system as soon as possible, which will be used for the creation, checking and forwarding of invoices.

Introduction We are extremely proud that in this episode of VAT Talks we spoke with one of the fathers of the first real-time reporting system in the European Union, Rufino de la Rosa. After setting up the Suministro de Información Inmediata (SII), Rufino is now Partner Global Compliance and Reporting at EY. During the interview we discussed the main functionalities of the SII, why the Spanish tax authority decided to implement such a system and how the implementation process looked like.

Introduction As the European Commission is preparing its legislative proposal under the heading of “VAT in the Digital Age” for Q3 2022, we believe it might be a good time to share the advice experts provided to the European Commission throughout our VAT Talks series. We are very thankful that so many experts shared their views on VAT with us. This resulted in advice regarding the use of technology, the need to focus on harmonisation and simplification, and the importance of a continuous dialogue with the business community.

Introduction Many governments all over the world are currently deciding what type of real-time reporting system they want to implement. With this blog post we hope to assist these governments by showing various design options of real-time reporting. In the following we will analyse four different real-time reporting solutions after which we will compare those with summitto’s own real-time reporting solution: TX++. We will explain that TX++ can achieve the same results as any other real-time reporting system, while at the same time:

Introduction Recently the European Parliament published an excellent report discussing how to improve the exchange of information and compliance to reduce the VAT gap. In the following we will provide an overview of the main findings and analyse the conclusions made in the report. We’ll start by discussing the size of the current VAT gap and the amount of VAT fraud committed on an annual basis. At least €50 billion in VAT fraud every year The report rightfully states that it’s difficult to estimate the VAT gap “as by definition it involves the estimation of unobserved variables, such as the compliance rate.

Introduction It’s an exciting period for everyone who follows VAT news. Various countries are implementing a VAT system, others are introducing carbon taxes, while recently the e-commerce legislation in the EU went into force. All extremely interesting topics, but the most exciting of them all is the surge of real-time reporting! Multiple countries all over the world are currently in the process of implementing some variant of this tool to tackle VAT fraud.

Introduction In this week’s blog post, we had the pleasure to discuss VAT with Tiina Ruohola. Tiina is Senior Adviser Indirect Taxes at EK - Confederation of Finnish Industries and in that capacity also member of the VAT Expert Group. Learn everything about e-invoicing in Finland and what she believes is a correct balance regarding data sharing with the tax authority. She rightfully states that “all information required should always be reasonable and actually used, not just collected.

Introduction In May 2020 we published an article about how many invoices summitto’s real-time reporting system could handle. We showed that TX++ could already serve e.g. Italy (between 2 and 3 billion invoices per year)[1] and Spain (4.8 billion invoices per year).[2] At that moment in time our software could handle 700 transactions per second, which refers to a maximum of 22 billion invoices per year. It is important for reporting systems to be future-proof, and to be able to handle changes in legislation and a growth in invoice usage.

Introduction Real-time reporting is picking up pace in more and more countries in order to reduce VAT fraud and increase compliance. In our previous blog posts, we have highlighted many benefits of real-time reporting for businesses and tax authorities. This time, we want to take a different approach: we ask VAT experts. Through our VAT talks, we have collected an incredible amount of precious information on real-time reporting developments, ways of implementation, its benefits and its weaknesses.