CONETIC EVALUATION OF DRAFT ROYAL DECREE IMPLEMENTING LAW 18/2022 of 28 September 2022 ON THE CREATION AND GROWTH OF COMPANIES WITH REGARD TO ELECTRONIC INVOICING BETWEEN COMPANIES AND PROFESSIONALS
Article 1 describes the technical and information requirements for the “future Spanish electronic invoicing system between business operators and professionals
The functionalities proposed for the new B2B platform, called SPFE, are the same as those already provided in Spain by the public platform FACeB2B since July 2018. FACeB2B allows the exchange of B2B invoices between companies and professionals and incorporates payment control by notifying the status of the invoice, which is one of the objectives sought by Law 18/2022. The Royal Decree makes no mention of the existence of FACeB2B or the transition from one system to the other.
The draft of the Royal Decree does not align with the recommendations of theEuropean Commission, and stablishes a different treatment for B2G, B2B and B2C, national and international scenarios. This shows an absolute lack of global vision of what the deployment of electronic invoicing in a country represents, that should include, allowing and requiring companies to uniformly issue invoices for all types of customers -B2G, B2B, B2C- as well as their reception. A public platform must be available so that this leap is universally enabled in the country, and to stimulate a market for private platforms that supply added value to the companies in their use of the electronic invoicing. Once so deployed, the electronic invoicing will permit the simplification or elimination of tax reporting based on data that is included in invoices, and act as an enabler for further steps in the digitalization of the economy.
Commission proposal.Common approach in B2G, B2B and B2C
It has been emphasised that a significant challenge for economic operators stems from varying approaches in national policies concerning B2G, B2B, and even B2C in Member States that choose to regulate the latter.Economic operators, who offer services across all eInvoicing domains, require a unified process where consistent tools can be applied. Presently, the distinction between B2G and B2Bapproaches poses difficulties for end-users in Member States. This is evident in the development of separate platforms by governments for B2G and B2B eInvoicing, creating unnecessary complexity for enterprises compelled to use both.
1.1. Proposal for the draft of the Royal Decree. Separate Platforms
Currently in Spain, invoices sent to the public sector, B2G, must be delivered on the FACe platform and the model proposed in the draft of the Royal Decree will be based on another independent platform, SPFE, so Spanish companies will be forced to use different platforms to send their invoices depending on the type of customer. B2G to FACe and B2B to SPFE.
Sending invoices B2C or exchange with companies in EU or non-EU countries are not contemplated.
According to the draft of the Royal Decree, the provincial territories will be able to deploy their own billing systems, as has already happened in 2023 with TicketBai in Guipuzcoa and Alava, so the information systems of companies installed in different regions must have specific software adaptations for each platform.
This deployment of differentiated platforms adds greater operational complexity to the invoicing processes of companies, especially SMEs.
Commission proposal. Improving Interoperability
The eInvoicing Directive effectively addresses interoperability at both the semantic and legal layers. The European eInvoicing standard, consisting of EN 16931-1 and TS 16931-2, specifies the semantic data model and mandatory syntaxes, ensuring seamless exchange of eInvoices across different systems. This aligns well with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF).
2.1. Proposal for the draft of the Royal Decree syntaxes
a) UN/CEFACT Cross Industry Invoice XML message as specified in XML Schemas 16B (SCRDM — CII).
b) UBL invoice and credit note messages as defined in ISO/IEC 19845:2015.
c) EDIFACT invoice message in accordance with standard ISO 9735.
d) Facturae message, in the version for invoicing between business operators and professionals in force at any given time.
Given that the EN-16931 standard only allows the use of UBL or CII syntax, the use of the Facturae format can be understood as transitory because since 2014 in Spain it has been used in both FACe and FACeB2B and also both platforms will already incorporate automatic format converters to Facturae-UBL-CII, but the duration of the transition period of the use of Facturae should be established to converge to the UBL and CII standardized formats.
3. Commission proposal. VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA)
There is a strong link between the Directive and the 2022 European Commission VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) legislative proposals as regards the role of eInvoicing in VAT reporting and the establishment of electronic invoicing as a default method, starting in 2028.
3.1. New tax fraud prevention regulation in Spain
The draft of the Royal Decree does not have the global vision that allows the simplification of tax reports from the delivery of electronic invoices.
Currently, the Spanish Tax Agency mandates companies with a turnover of more than 6 million euros to deliver the tax reports of invoices issued or received within 4 days of their registration on a system named SII (Immediate Information System). All the information required by the tax report is on the invoice and therefore the delivery of information is redundant so could be simplified or eliminated, otherwise companies must use two different platforms: SPFE and SII
On the other side, the new tax prevention regulation in Spain stablishes that in 2025 Spanish companies with a turnover of less than €6 million will make an online communication of the tax report before issuing an invoice; this will occur prior to the need to deliver the invoice through the corresponding platform depending on the type of customer: FACe or SPFE.
A clearly inefficient invoicing and tax reporting operation for companies and with a great impact on SMEs.
CONCLUSIONS
The draft Royal Decree should be aligned with the Commission's proposals. The model deployed by Italy, SdI, for electronic invoicing, B2G, B2B, B2C through a single public and free platform that also implies the simplification of tax reporting, is an example that we also demand for Spanish companies.
