Tax Agency requests investigation to review mandatory electronic invoice for B2B and G2B
Sweden is progressing its review of e-invoicing options with stakeholders in the sector. Skatteverket (tax agency), Bolagsverkey (company registration body) and Digg (government digital agency) have requested government to start an investigation into mandatory e-invoicing for B2B and G2B.
The various interested parties are now looking at pilots around B2B to gather learnings, particularly for large enterprises.
Skatteverket spent 2022 consulting with stakeholders in the market on digital reporting and e-invoicing, and concluded without mandatory backing, adoption would not proceed sufficiently across the economy to realise the benefits and risks Sweden falling further behind its Scandinavian neighbours. Additionally, the EU is proposing mandating structured e-invoicing for cross-border intra-community supplies from 2028.
EU EN16931 and potential PEPPOL adoption
This dove tails into the EU VAT in the Digital Age’s own Digital Reporting Requirements options for digital reporting from 2018. Any Swedish regime would be based on the EU standard EN16931, and may be based on PEPPOL e-invoicing. The existing mandatory B2G e-invoicing is based on Peppol BIS.
The three bodies believe that neighbouring countries progress in e-invoicing has led to better adoption in the digital transactions processing. Finish e-invoicing includes the right for customers to demand e-invoices from the suppliers. Norwegian authorities make extensive use of e-invoicing for their outgoing invoicing to gain efficiency.
The Swedish review would examine:
- B2B Mandatory e-invoicing for domestic and intra-community supplies
- G2B on-demand e-invoicing
- What exemptions should be allowed for
- What constitutional changes are required
- Potential penalty regimes
- Should any regime be based on PEPPOL
- The possibility of a e-invoice adoption threshold to minimise the costs for small businesses
- No date for the start of the investigation is provided, although a quick start is anticipated.
Reluctant adopter for e-invoicing?
The authorities have been in discussions with large accounting firms, tax tech providers and other tax authorities about the best formats to select since 2022. However, Sweden, with one of the lowest VAT Gaps in the EU – the measure of VAT collected versus expected – it will be a sceptical candidate for the major overhauls and costs required. But since the rest of the EU is progressing similar reforms, it is no doubt wanted to keep up-to-date on the different models.
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Since 1 April 2019, all Swedish public sector purchases must be billed via e-invoice according to a European standard. This means that, a public sector supplier must send e-invoices, and all public sector organisations must be able to receive these. Paper and PDF invoices are no longer acceptable. From 1 December 2019, all contracting entities in public sector (central government agencies, municipalities and regions) will have to be registered in Peppol. In Sweden, the standard which meets the new law’s requirements is known as Peppol BIS Billing 3.0. But there is no governmental solution or platform.
Read more about Swedish VAT in our country guide.
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