The first months of the year were, on the one hand, about waiting and, on the other hand, after learning about the changes in the 2019 online invoice decree, about active development work for those who follow the online invoice data reporting of HU TA as financial or technological leaders or as developers. The XSD schema change applies on a compulsory basis from May and the tax authority does not wish to extend this deadline. From may, the online invoice system of HU TA will only accept invoices reported according to the new schema.
If you fail to submit online invoice data reports, you can expect to be contacted by HU TA
From January, the tax authority applies enhanced scrutiny to the taxpayers who have not yet submitted online data reports for their invoices subject to reporting obligation from July 2018. Special attention will be paid also to the data reports, which were not submitted in the right manner or form. The next challenge for the tax authority is the improvement of data quality and data security. Progress in this area would be critical as the future of digital taxation is driven to a large extent by the quality of initial data available for further processing.
Half success, half failure: outstanding rate of computer data reporting with errors in half of them
Almost 16 million of the close to 34 million data reports submitted from the launch of online invoice data reporting until March 2019 could not be processed according to the tax authority. This means that almost every other data report was erroneous and was partly or entirely unsuitable for further use.
As the goal was to digitalize online invoice data reporting to the highest extent possible and according to the statistics published by HU TA, the rate of computer data submission reached 96 percent, a development of manual data reporting is not expected. There is a possibility for a larger scale transformation of computer data reporting as without the optimization of current technological conditions and requirements, the tax authority does not see a chance for improvement.
Companies need to prepare for online invoice version 2.0
The latest plans of HU TA therefore include the introduction of a main version 2.0 for online invoices. Moving to a new main version always indicates larger scale changes than a mere update to an existing version and will most likely have a stronger impact than we could expect so far. Details on the exact content of the new version 2.0 are not yet known but HU TA has already shared the schedule relating to its release in order to support development and preparation. According to the plans:
- the draft of online invoice version 2.0 is expected to be published in April 2019.
- Comments to the online invoice draft 2.0 can be submitted for one month.
- The final form of online invoice 2.0 will be published in the beginning of July 2019.
- Data reporting and data acceptance will go live in the beginning of January 2020 after a preparation period of approximately six months.
The goal to reach is draft VAT returns
The ultimate goal of the tax authority is automated preparation of draft VAT returns. In order for this not to be merely a vision but a feasible concept it seems that further technical preparation is necessary on the side of both the tax authority and taxpayers. At the moment, this seems impossible without the amendment of the XML schema representing the basis of data reporting, therefore, further schema updates are expected to come with version 2.0. After the launch of schema 1.1, publication of the details of the new version 2.0 are close also so the second and third thirds of the year will include excitement for the persons concerned by online invoice data reporting.
The end of April deadline of conversion to XSD 1.1 did not change and the extension of the relating transitional grace period was also turned down in the beginning of March. Therefore, the developers of invoicing systems now only concentrate on satisfying this new requirement. From May, the tax authority will not accept any invoice data reports submitted with the current XML schema. The issuers of invoices concerned by the regulation have one and a half months for updating their invoicing systems and to carry out any necessary developments.
