"Zakat, Tax and Customs": Applying electronic billing to commercial establishments next December
The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority will launch the first phase of the electronic billing project (invoice) compulsorily on commercial establishments, on the fourth of next December, as electronic invoicing aims to achieve economic goals that support competition and consumer protection, and link all transactions with the authority’s systems automatically.
The director of the technical path for the electronic billing project (Invoice) at the Authority, Abdullah bin Ahmed Al-Madani, explained during a workshop organized by the Asharqia Chamber represented by the Commercial Committee on Monday, July 12, 2021, entitled “Electronic billing for service providers and developers of technical systems” that electronic billing is a procedure aimed at transforming the process of issuing electronic bills. And paper notices into an electronic process that allows the exchange of invoices and debt notices and their processing in an organized electronic format between the seller and the buyer in an integrated electronic format, and the electronic invoice is saved in an electronic form organized through an electronic system, and it contains all the requirements of the tax invoice, according to an electronic system compatible with the Authority’s systems, where Al-Madani confirmed During the workshop, the handwritten, scanned, or non-compliant invoices with the regulations and requirements of the authority are not electronic invoices.
During the workshop, which was moderated by committee member Fahd bin Saeed Al-Suhaim, Al-Madani said that the authority approved the electronic billing project (invoice) due to the presence of several benefits, most notably enhancing the atmosphere of fair competition and consumer protection by providing a unified mechanism for documenting and auditing invoices, fighting the hidden economy, and reducing Commercial cover-up by increasing requirements related to invoice tracking and data retention, and increasing compliance with tax obligations through enhanced verification of commercial transactions.
Al-Madani indicated that this transformation will be in stages, starting from the fourth of December 2020, with the issuance of the electronic billing regulation, followed by the issuance of the controls, requirements, technical specifications, and procedural rules necessary to implement the provisions of the electronic billing regulation on May 28, 2021. Al-Madani indicated that the application of electronic billing will be done in two phases, the first phase of issuance and preservation, which will be obligatory starting from the fourth of December 2021 AD. The second phase, which is known as the linking and integration phase, will be implemented in a phased manner starting from January 1, 2023. The authority will determine the stages of linking the electronic billing systems and notify the target groups in each stage at least six months before the date set for linking.
Al-Madani concluded the workshop by emphasizing that electronic invoicing (invoice) will be binding on any VAT-registered establishment (except for non-resident establishments) because it is part of the VAT executive regulations.
