The Italian authorities passed a series of measures aimed at detecting and combating tax fraud: "Quarterly informative report VAT invoices data". The aim is to get close to real-time information of company transactions, which will allow the tax authorities to perform a more efficient tax audit and reduce processing time. Companies face business challenges to implement these new requirements.

From 1 July 2018, taxpayers are as stated earlier obliged to provide within 24 hours invoice data for domestic transactions with a minimum VAT amount of HUF 100,000 (approximately 322 EUR).

Besides recently Poland, SAF-T is introduced now also for Lithuania and Norway. A fully integrated solution in SAP without an external interface or use of external software is available for Lithuania, Poland and Norway. Other countries will follow.

In order to quickly gain insight into the level of tax risks (i.e. calculation of the potential assessment), statistical sampling can be used. By selecting a few elements (euros), the reliability of the composition of tax items can be determined to a high degree of certainty, and on the basis of identified errors in the sample, the exact amount of additional tax assessment can be calculated.

When high risk indirect tax areas and lowest performing VAT processes - that have a direct impact on the company's VAT objectives - have been identified, the next step is to measure the performance in term of effectiveness and efficiency of each of these processes. Measure the magnitude of that problem, determine why the problem exists, and generate a set of solutions to ensure that the problem goes away.

A high level overview is provided of the EU VAT system: what is subject to VAT and the right and methods of VAT recoverability. It includes also a comparison with the US Sales and Use Taxes system.

59 percent of respondents (53 percent in 2014) expect the personal liability of compliance officers to increase in 2015, with 15 percent expecting a significant increase. Compliance officers or its Executives at firms as diverse as Swinton Insurance, Bank Leumi, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Brown Brothers Harriman and Deutsche Bank (DB: VAT fraud) having been fined, banned or jailed (or a combination).

Starting January 1, 2019, in Italy a mandatory electronic invoicing obligation will be in force for the supplies of goods or services. This e-invoicing obligation - similar like Spain and Hungary - is about detecting and combating VAT fraud/tax evasion, but also to stimulate company's to get ready for the digital age. Taxpayers will be forced to get their ERP systems to send and receive in XML format e-invoicing data via the Interchange System ('SDI').

Tax moral is shifting. More often what is (still) legally allowed may not automatically be accepted by the public opinion. Reputational damage is imminent. Both on direct and indirect taxation the tax authorities have set their priorities. The tax authorities not only want to receive more tax data, but also faster and more often.

With human error added into the equation, some defects are going to occur. If the tax function only has MS Excel to perform data transformation to make the data tax ready, the volume of procedures and controls will have to be significantly greater. The problem is that in Excel altered data can lose its audit trail back to its source: mismatches with a companies ERP system. A point of attention as ERP data is the source of truth by the tax authorities (e.g. e-audits such as SAF-T).

Certain businesses have to publish their tax strategy and be able to demonstrate how the tax strategy is being applied in practice. The strategy should set out the business’ attitude to tax risk, its appetite for tax planning and its approach to its relationship with HMRC. Although it applies to the UK, being consistent across jurisdictions is important as these obligations might be a global tax trend.

Tax audits could be very time consuming and have a huge impact on resources or external advisors. Be therefore prepared and minimize the risk that extensive resources have to be allocated when a audit is held. A transparent relationship with tax authorities might resolve any disputes faster.

We offer an SAP health check specifically on e-invoicing data requests such as Hungary, Italy and Spain and our method is based on the legal tax requirements defined in XML format and local VAT law.

Standard Audit File for Tax Purposes for Norway first version was ready in March 2016. It was limited to account specification (general ledger), and supplier and customer specification (subsidiary ledger). Required fixed data was also included. The new 2020 version of the SAF-T Financial will consist of source documents such as detailed invoice data and movements of goods and asset transactions.