Entrepreneurs are terrorized by electronic invoice deadlines and errors. Groups are full of people who represent different situations, different mistakes. Perhaps one of the most “funny” errors comes from a well-known invoicing program that integrated e-Invoice: “The maximum number of calls that ANAF can receive has been reached. Please try again later. It’s hard at first, it will definitely get better.”

With that message, they tried to “sweeten” the negative experience. The image is now viral in business and accounting circles.

As for the accountant groups, we mean those who haven’t experienced issues (as the situation varies from case to case) they say they have invoices that have been sent to the system for several days and are still “in process “.

However, Finance Minister Marcel Bolosh blames taxpayers for the fact that the system has errors. He has been linked to three situations, and on Tuesday HotNews.ro presented more. From then until today, new ones have appeared.

Even very high rate taxpayers have problems. One of the most famous mobile operators sent the customer a bill dozens of times. It is clear that this is an error in the system of the Ministry of Finance, but Marcel Bolosh says that he is putting pressure on taxpayers several times. However, this does not mean that these people press the button dozens of times.

This is clearly a system error. And yesterday we featured cases of people who seem to have sent about 100 times. This is just the beginning. Recall that when it was only optional, some taxpayers ended up with the same account more than 3,000 times.

How e-Invoice was planned to be used in 2023 and what has changed in the year since it became an instrument of torture

In the first half of 2023, discussions regarding the implementation of e-Invoice were different. The system was thought differently, that is, more normally, and not with other platforms, as now.

One of the last meetings on this topic took place shortly before the arrival of Masel Bolos after a round at the Ministry of Finance.

CNIF (National Center for Financial Information) and ANAF participated in these discussions.

The essence at the time was: a system that would work entirely in a virtual private space (SPV). Basically, you entered the SPV, there was an e-invoice button, you filled it out, issued it, and sent it directly there. It was like a classic billing platform.

Many fields that were already filled in were also provided so that taxpayers would not waste any more time.

I mean, not like today where you have to go to the Treasury website, fill everything from scratch, create XML files, PDF files, and then submit to another platform like the Treasury. You didn’t walk that many steps anymore. Everything was right there.

In the second half of the year, major changes took place in the Ministry of Finance. For some reason unknown to many, it was decided to use the STS to create this complex system we have today, which makes the life of entrepreneurs a difficult ordeal. So they abandoned the original idea and set about creating something new: today’s system, which is full of errors (which, according to Bolosh, were created by taxpayers).

It’s like in life, if one person tells you that you’re wrong, it’s quite possible that they’re wrong, but if other people are telling you, then maybe you should listen to them.

The Ministry of Finance and ANAF must partner with an honest business environment that wants to comply. In order not to start a war.

Very small taxpayers do not understand why this was put on their heads

True story: I was at the gym last night and a gentleman who was asking me for help with body positioning during certain exercises to avoid injury wanted to show me a workout program he found online.

When he opened the phone, in the browser there was some e-account guide, not the one from the Ministry of Finance. I asked him if he had started sending to the system. He said no: “I understood that I needed a signature for Public Private Space (he meant Virtual Private Space), but I don’t have the money for it and I don’t know how. I can’t handle it.”

Continuation: “I work in a company, but I took the PFA at the end of last year because I want to try something. They are starting this year and now I see that they have introduced it. I don’t understand why.”

We talked to each other about this topic and then he told me that he managed to find an accountant who asks him for 5 lei/invoice and saves him the hassle of registering with SPV and using e-invoice.

This applies even to very small taxpayers. Question: why the Ministry of Finance did not divide this obligation by categories of taxpayers is difficult to understand.

B2B e-Invoice system exists only in 4 countries besides us, but they do not have this chaos.

In France, it is mandatory for large companies from July 2024, medium-sized taxpayers are obliged from 2025, and small ones from 2026.

If we look at Italy, after 3 years of introducing more and more types of taxpayers, they finally generalized it to B2B and B2C.

Who is the Ministry of Finance fighting against: honest payers or non-payers?

If you listen to official statements, the state wants to fight with refugees. In this case, it can be considered that, for now, honest taxpayers are collateral victims.

It is not clear why Marcel Bolos insults the taxpayers who pay his salary, saying they make mistakes, and it is also unclear why the state has started to fight the doers and not the evaders.

This system simply needs to be changed, made as simple as possible, i.e., the way it was conceived in the first half of 2023, and not the oddities that appeared later.

If these taxpayers are trying to comply, it means they have no intention of evading. So the Ministry of Finance should come to their aid.

He is the second minister in a row who sees taxpayers differently after Adrian Cachiu and the slogan “baboon entrepreneurs”.

The Minister of Finance is the defender of the current e-Invoice system. The right taxpayers are the ones who are suffering now and the problem looks set to continue to be ignored.

It seems that e-Invoice is not checked enough, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many errors

What do you do when you create an app? You do alpha, beta testing.

See what are the errors, problems and solve them. You start with the big taxpayers and then work your way down, as happened with the cash registers.

*Regarding cash registers, the data is stored by the Ministry of Finance, but there is no analysis software. It’s just data collection.

Hold a conference call on December 30th (Saturday before New Year’s, when people had the day off) to announce that you have completed work on the system and want to tell taxpayers that they have 2 days to complete it, it shows them respect.

If the problems continue after April 1st and, say, more than 20-30% of conscientious taxpayers file their returns late (due to errors), will they all be fined? Isn’t that considered a problem? If the goal is related to the receipts to the budget of fines for delay, then the fiscal policy is bad, directed against honest taxpayers.

Photo source: Dreamstime.com