The majority of companies responding to a survey conducted by PwC Romania expect that tax control will be simplified after the introduction of electronic invoicing in business-to-business (B2B) relations, which will become mandatory from 2024.

Thus, 85% of those who responded believe that RO e-Invoice will contribute to the development of the ANAF documentary verification mechanism, respectively, the control of remote office audits, and 56% say that the requests of control groups will be reduced during tax audits.

In addition, companies estimate that e-invoices will bring other benefits, such as reducing VAT fraud at the national level as well as within the European Union, as well as contributing to the efficiency of the tax collection process (54% of respondents) or reducing the vulnerability of the old system invoicing in companies: human errors, volumes and high archiving costs (35% of respondents).

“The e-invoicing obligation is one of the measures included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) to increase taxpayer compliance and to prevent fraud attempts. Data provided by the Romanian authorities to the European Commission show that the expansion of e-invoicing obligations in business-to-business relationships will reduce the VAT gap by at least 5 percentage points by 2026 compared to the level recorded in 2019. Thus, according to the authorities, this measure will lead to an increase in the collection of VAT and direct taxes by at least 1.5 billion euros. Given that the public budget continues to register significant imbalances and that the government is looking for solutions for fiscal consolidation, ANAF’s digitization and reform measures are ones that will bring real long-term benefits to fair taxpayers,” said Daniel Angel, Partner and Head of Fiscal and legal services of PwC Romania.

How is the introduction of an electronic account?

According to the survey, 58% of responding companies have started preparations for the implementation of RO e-Invoice, but 40% of them are at the stage of general analysis of mandatory data.

So far, 17.5% have completed implementing, installing and testing the solution, while 22% have taken no action.

“Companies in Romania must adapt their internal systems to issue electronic invoices and send them via RO e-Invoice. This process will involve a number of internal analyses, technical changes, allocation of human resources, development or contracting of bids, and additional financial resources. The inability to issue electronic invoices in accordance with the new obligations may affect the company’s internal processes, as well as commercial relations between partners, given that there may be partners who may refuse to pay an invoice if it has not been issued and transmitted through RO e-Invoice,” explained Inge Abdulcair, Tax Director of PwC Romania.

According to the respondents, the main reasons that delay the completion of the electronic invoice implementation process are: the time required for the adaptation of the ERP system and the establishment of data conversion rules (66%) and the lack of clear explanations from the authorities. regarding the obligation of the RO electronic account (43%).

The project “Electronic account – a system of mandatory electronic invoicing” was launched in March 2020 by the Ministry of Finance and the National Agency for Fiscal Administration and will be implemented in stages, initially being mandatory for business entities in relation to government customers, B2G ( business to government), subsequently becoming mandatory also in contracts concluded in B2B (business to business) relations, to the extent that they have as their subject products with high fiscal risk.

From January 1, 2024, reporting on electronic invoices is mandatory for all business-to-business (B2B) transactions.

The PwC Romania survey, conducted in September 2023, was completed by 104 companies, the vast majority of which are large taxpayers of the state budget.

Article supported by PwC Romania