There is an even bigger threat to your invoice information you are not yet aware of, even if no public security hacks have been reported. Both on our blog and on our Twitter account, we often stress the importance of data security. Failures of this security can lead to data breaches which can result in significant costs for companies. This is especially relevant when we are talking about invoice information, as this contains pricing information.

After we discussed the plans to implement mandatory e-invoicing in France with Laurent Poigt, in this episode of VAT Talks we speak with Cyrille Sautereau, chair of the Forum National de la Facturation Électronique et des Marchés Publics Électroniques (FNFE-MPE) and CEO of ADMAREL Conseil. Executive summary Cyrille Sautereau has vast experience in the e-invoicing sector, creating one of the first e-invoicing service providers in France (Deskom). In this article he first gives a detailed explanation of the e-invoicing landscape of France, showing that still only around 10% of all invoices are ‘fully structured e-invoices’ which shows the importance of the upcoming mandatory e-invoicing regime.

Previously we analysed the outcomes of the Fiscalis workshop where real-time reporting was discussed. We showed how summitto’s solution could help solve many issues that were raised during the workshop. However, some questions remained which were posed to the VAT Expert Group (VEG). With this blog post, we hope we can help by providing feedback on these questions. In the following we try to answer questions around (1) design, (2) harmonisation, (3) transmission of the invoices and (4) benefits for business.

At summitto, we start our day with a fresh shot of VAT news via VAT Update. We’re sure that a lot of VAT professionals developed the same ritual. That’s why we’re very pleased to be able to discuss VAT with one of the founders of VAT Update, Kelvin Hulsebos! In this episode of VAT Talks we spoke about VAT Update, the latest VAT news and real-time reporting in the European Union.

Real-time reporting, Continuous Transaction Controls (CTC), Transaction based reporting (TBR). Whatever you want to call it, it’s a hot topic! We recently saw many countries implementing such systems, with France being the latest European Union (EU) Member State to decide so. Furthermore, real-time reporting is also high on the agenda of the European Commission (EC) as one could have read in July’s Tax Package.[1] The publication of the results of the latest Fiscalis[2] workshop makes this even more clear.

This episode of VAT Talks is all about France. Recently the French tax authority released a report ‘VAT in the Digital Age’ in which the method of implementation of mandatory e-invoicing combined with e-reporting is proposed. The decision of the French government shows once more that real-time reporting is quickly becoming the standard throughout the European Union and the world. We’re honoured that Laurent Poigt, Partner in the VAT team of PwC Société d’Avocats, took the time to analyse the report with us.

In today’s episode of VAT Talks we discuss digital reporting requirements (summitto’s confidential real-time reporting system falls under this umbrella term) with Michel Schrauwen, Managing Partner Indirect Taxes at Deloitte, and Oscar Smeets, Senior Manager Indirect Tax at Deloitte and lecturer at Tilburg University. Together they wrote an excellent article about the potential benefits of digital reporting requirements for the Netherlands, cautiously concluding that the Dutch government could save at least €1.

In previous blog posts we explained how our real-time reporting system (sometimes called CTC system) is able to reduce VAT fraud and close the VAT gap without collecting any actual invoice data. Our system has many similarities to existing real- and near-time reporting systems (after this referred to as a ‘reporting system’), which an increasing number of EU Member States are implementing. We support this development as we believe that reporting has really proved to be an excellent tool to close the VAT gap.

Previously, we explained that real-time invoice reporting systems can tackle VAT fraud without collecting massive amounts of data. Companies will still need to register invoices, but instead of storing the data in “plain text” at a centralized location, always accessible to authorized personnel, VAT fraud can be detected even if the data is encrypted. An essential part of confidential real-time invoice reporting is that instead of storing invoice data itself, a unique fingerprint can be created of the invoice using so-called cryptographic hashing.

In this episode of VAT talks we speak with Gerard Bottemanne. Gerard has been conducting research into accounting software and related subjects for years. One of those subjects is e-invoicing, something that is very relevant in the realm of VAT as we briefly discussed in a previous blogpost. In this blogpost we discuss the latest development of e-invoicing in the Netherlands and the EU, the importance of harmonisation and the role of Peppol in this regard.