Luxembourg
Luxembourg has recently introduced a new law that makes it compulsory for businesses selling to the public sector (government) to issue electronic invoices.
This new law will allow businesses that sell to government departments in the country to declare their sales to the Luxembourg tax authorities via a new e-invoicing platform, instead of sending invoices directly to their customers. The Luxembourg tax authorities will then verify these invoices and send them to the relevant government department to prevent fraud and speed up payment times for suppliers.
The new electronic invoicing rules will be introduced in a phased approach beginning with large entities from April 2022.
Luxembourg has not provided any further clarification as to whether this will be introduced for other types of supplies, for instance business to business transactions, in the future.
Spain
The Spanish government has approved a VAT law that includes a requirement for businesses to issue electronic invoices for all business-to-business (B2B) transactions.
Currently, the Spanish tax authority receives transactional information from certain taxpayers through the Suministro Inmediato de Información (SII). However, this platform only applies to large enterprises with an annual turnover of over €6 million, and companies affected are only required to upload invoices to the tax authorities within four working days from the issue or receipt of an invoice.
By moving to compulsory e-invoicing over SII, it would mean a wider set of taxpayers would be required to validate their B2B invoices on a more frequent basis before issuing these to their clients. It is hoped that this will then further prevent common errors on these types of invoices and will help prevent VAT fraud in the country.
Spain joins a growing list of EU countries, including Italy, Hungary, Poland, France, Romania, and Slovakia, which have or will introduce e-invoices soon.
Switzerland
The Swiss tax authorities are proposing to increase VAT rates in the country as follows:
- Standard rate – 7.7% to 8.1%
- Reduced rate – 2.5% to 2.6%
- Special VAT rate for accommodation – 3.7% to 3.8%
This proposal is being put forward in an attempt to cover the pension deficit caused by the ‘baby boomer’ generation, and if accepted it is likely to be introduced sometime during 2023.
The above information was kindly provided by Fiscal Solutions (UK), www.fiscalsolutions.co.uk; contact: [email protected].
