Читать книгу Global Tax Governance. Taxation on Digital Economy, Transfer Pricing and Litigation in Tax Matters (MAPs + ADR) Policies for Global Sustainability. Ongoing U.N. 2030 (SDG) and Addis Ababa Agendas - Jeffrey Owens - Страница 20

Monica Schpallir Calijuri

Digital tools, new communication channels, and the large increase of internal and external data sources have changed the economy and the society in general, creating new relationship among vendors, buyers, and tax administrations. The rapid pace at which technology develops and is incorporated into different areas of the economy provides numerous opportunities for tax agencies to capture and systematize large information flows using new tax management tools. The main goal of these technological innovations is to capture data, thereby simplifying compliance with tax obligations.

One example of the use of technology to increase compliance is the implementation of electronic invoices (e-invoices) in many countries of the LAC region. The trend started with Chile in 2003, followed by Argentina, which introduced the mandatory use of e-invoices for a specific group of taxpayers in 2007. Brazil in 2006, and Mexico in 2004 introduced the largest e-invoicing programs, adopting different validation models; in Brazil, the validation of information is made by tax administration; in Mexico, by authorized third parties. Both programs use digital signatures and cover the whole production chain until the final consumption of goods and services. In Mexico, e-invoicing is also used for the payroll process, with 21 million e-invoices issued daily. The website of “nota fiscal eletronica”21 shows that more than 28 billion electronic invoices have been issued and validated since the program started.

Over the years, other countries have made an effort to implement e-invoicing, including Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Several others22 are laying the groundwork with pilots and plans for expansion. In Europe, Italia implemented the invoice clearance model in 2019, and there is growing interest among other European countries. France and Poland have already taken the first steps to introduce a mandatory e-invoicing system. The main reason for that is to reduce tax fraud, which in 2018 was estimated at 140 billion euros in VAT revenues in the EU Member States. The digital transformation establishes new compliance tolls besides periodic reporting of aggregate data by taxpayers, to immediate electronic reporting of transaction data in real-time through all kind of fiscal electronic documents.

E-invoicing simplifies compliance for taxpayers and improves insight into the national transactions of each taxpayer and automatically places them under the oversight of national tax authorities.23 There is also an environmental benefit the reduction in use of paper, ink, and space for storage. In addition, using electronic fiscal documents means errors in tax returns and accounting records can be found quickly by simply cross-checking information which can identify evidence of tax evasion. Moreover, the e-invoice allows tax administrations to provide a pre-populated VAT declaration, reducing compliance time and effort. For example, Chile introduced this system with an acceptance rate of 92.9% of the submitted declarations. As a tax administration tool, the pre-populated declaration decreases errors, increases tax collection, and decreases tax evasion.

The positive impacts of the use of e-invoicing are many; Bellon et al (2019)24 find that e-invoicing increases reported firm sales, purchases, and value-added by over 5 percent in the first year after adoption in Peru. In other words, immediate electronic reporting of transaction data to tax authorities provides a complete picture of a country’s economic activity. So, the benefits go beyond VAT control and tax collection.

Align with e-invoices, other electronic tools have been implemented in many countries to collect data from business taxpayers in an effort to decrease paper consumption, expedite the process, and increase the accuracy of information. In Brazil, the Public Digital Bookkeeping System (SPED) was introduced in 2008 to standardize the interactions between Brazilian tax authorities and taxpayers and replace paper copies of invoices and tax records. The system is used at federal, state, and municipal levels. The SPED system collects all financial, accountant, tax, and labor information from Brazilian companies, which are required to provide their information electronically, improving the capacity of Tax Authorities to have real-time cross-checking data.

The information is provided to the tax authorities in 12 different models –with 7 ancillary obligations and 5 different electronic fiscal documents– and transmitted via the internet. The 5 electronic documents are:

• NF-e: a digital document that validates the operation and benefits of commercial transactions through the use of digital signatures from both the issuer and the tax administration.

• NFS-e: electronic fiscal invoices for goods and services

• CT-e: a digital document for the rendering of cargo transportation services requiring digital signatures as well.

• NFC-e: an e-invoice for consumers that are typically a natural person and not a company

• MDF-e: an electronic fiscal manifest.

The ancillary obligations include: eSocial: i) a program to streamline HR and payroll to submit all he employee information on a monthly basis; ii) ECD: digital accounting bookkeeping documents; iii) ECF: ‘accounting tax bookkeeping’, which replaced the Brazilian corporate income tax return (DIPJ), where Brazilian taxpayers need to record all transactions that impact the computation bases for Income Tax purposes. iv) EFD: Contributions for PIS and Cofins; v) EFD-ICMS/IPI: a monthly obligation of reporting digital tax documents to the state tax authorizes (ICMS and IPI); vi) EFD-ReInf: digital bookkeeping and monthly reporting of withholdings and information on Social Security contributions; and vii) e-Financeira: a compliance obligation for banks

Having all the relevant information in one place makes it easier for tax authorities to notice any tax evasion or criminal activity by companies. Artificial intelligence can also help with making predictions and ensuring full compliance. But from the taxpayers’ perspective, what benefits can they gain from the digitalization of tax information besides making it easier to comply?

During the pandemic, having all this information available could have helped implement tax policies in 2020, that support the supply of materials for epidemic control and mitigate difficulties faced by businesses and the most vulnerable citizens. Tax information collected quickly and accurately is invaluable in monitoring economy activity, especially in the aftermath of economic shocks, in supporting virus control and treatment efforts, the data identify individuals and businesses that should receive tax exemptions and moratoriums, support material supply, and encourage charitable donations. E-invoices can be used to identify the best price available, increasing transparency and speed in the bid process and helping citizens to save money. Also, taxpayers can receive real-time VAT refunds automatically as they make their purchases.

Despite all the advances in the digitization of taxation, there remains a great of work to do to improve tax compliance. Being able to collect sufficient data in a timely manner would help enormously. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the tax losses from tax evasion are deeply shocking. ECLAC25 estimates that evasion of income tax and value-added tax resulted in a loss of US$ 325 billion in 2018, equivalent to 6.1% of the region’s GDP. As proposed by Pessino (2018),26 by using a unique identification for citizens, a country system can integrate the social and tax data, electronic payroll and social data, wealth and tax data to create mart data with huge benefits for all citizens and governments.

21.http://www.nfe.fazenda.gov.br/portal/principal.aspx (consulted: May/12/2021).

22.Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama.

23.Electronic Invoicing in Latin America. Barreix et al (2018) http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0001038.

24.Bellon, Matthieu et al: Digitalization to Improve Tax Compliance: Evidence from VAT E-invoicing in Peru. WP/19/231. IMF, November 2019.

25.Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2021 (LC/PUB.2021/5-P), Santiago, 2021.

26.Better spending for better lives: how Latin America and the Caribbean can do more with less/edited by Alejandro Izquierdo, Carola Pessino and Guillermo Vuletin. IADB, 2018.