Although it might seem a longer time, it was only 5 months ago when I wrote a post updating some innovations regarding electronic invoicing in the region and over a month ago, about some benefits that go beyond taxation and which I called “unexpected consequences”. However, here we go again. These are some innovations in electronic invoicing and some other unexpected consequence.

A new version of the electronic invoicing standard is implemented in Mexico. These are not only a few changes. I will be referring to some which, in my opinion, are very interesting.

• Forty fields are eliminated, among them, those with information on the addresses of the seller and buyer. That is, the fields that existed up to the previous version for providing such data as street, external number, settlement and municipality of the issuer as well as the receiver were eliminated from the standard. Someone, undoubtedly, has lifted the eyebrows as a signal, I don´t know, whether of admiration or disapproval. But before getting scared, it is also worth understanding that the change also introduces new validations, among them, the necessary verification by PAC in the Federal Taxpayer File of the receivers in the SAT data base.
• Fields for identifying the buyer’s country of fiscal residence and the taxpayer number are added for nonresident buyers.
• A series of catalogues of obligatory use are added in various fields. Among them, that of the zip code of the selling place, thereby determining the issuing time, regardless of the place of the PAC or the seller’s centralized issuance system (we must recall that a country may have more than one time zones); and the new coding of the type of product or service.
• This table has 52839 entries with things as different as: portable bathroom, 95131602; teaching materials for critical thinking, 60101705; tatooing services, 91101603 or, ranitidine hydrochloride, 51171904 (which is what anyone who endeavors to memorize the complete catalogue would want to take).
• Beyond any joke, the tremendous effort in coding and that which the taxpayers must make, so as not to be caught in “It does not exist in the catalogue, 01010101” is important. SAT has made available an inquiry via Internet mechanism to assist in such coding and has also made available a 60-person, which will be increased to 100, help desk to assist in issues regarding the “new invoice” for the telephone channel and chat, in addition to the staff infrastructure of the 67 Taxpayer Service Administrations throughout the country.
• The reason for the incorporation of catalogues and the 46 new validation rules is clear. That is, to improve the quality of the data.
• A payment receipt complement is added, which will be mandatory as of December 1, 2017, and which will be used upon receipt of the payment following the service; or with each parcel, by issuing an electronic document per instance, in cases where the payment is not made at once. The implementation of this mechanism will allow for avoiding undue cancellation of invoices, avoiding false duplication of revenues in partial billings, as well as to know whether or not an invoice has been paid.
• Calculation of round offs. Of all the changes, undoubtedly, I like this one the most. For purposes of validations of calculations that may occur in more than one place in the document (amount per unit value, value divided by type of exchange, value multiplied by aliquot), a maximum and a minimum value are established, close to the mathematical results in the decimal positions. Thus, the rule establishes that any value between the minimum and maximum is acceptable. It is a much better way of ensuring sufficient data quality, instead of trying to explain, for example, in which cases 12,325 should be rounded off to 12.32 or 12.33. Or even worst still, to remind people that they must multiply first and divide afterwards, given that, although it is true that mathematically it should be the same, round offs in the middle may generate difficulties.

Changes, as a whole, will allow for improving the quality of information, improve management of events related to the invoice and, of course, improve the process of pre-filling direct and indirect tax returns.

In Argentina, AFIP determined a new type of invoice, the M electrónica, which must be used for transactions exceeding one thousand Pesos (approximately USD 60), between taxpayers subject to VAT, when the issuer is a new taxpayer who cannot guarantee net worth solvency. In transactions with type “M” invoice, the receiver acts as VAT withholding agent in its totality and of 3 percent of the value of the invoice as withholding on account of the profit tax of the issuer. The purpose is to avoid the use of unauthentic invoices intended to make use of undue tax credits. The receiver of an invoice cannot make use of fiscal credits obtained from type “M” invoices without having previously sent the integral amount of said credit.

Brazil has recently incorporated rules and validations for establishing the obligation of using the GTIN code in the electronic invoice for all products susceptible of counting with the GS1 standard in transactions with the end consumer as well as in transactions between ICMS taxpayers.

However, it is precisely in Brazil where I found an innovation, one of those unexpected consequences that arise from the implementation of electronic invoicing to the end consumer and the collaborative economy. In a manner similar to that of the waze users, through the application they may inform the fuel prices in the gas stations they visit, the users of the QQcusta application may capture, through the bar code of the printed form of the electronic fiscal invoice for the end consumer, the details of the products purchased and the selling prices. Based on that information it is possible to monitor and compare the selling prices of the most varied products in the establishments that are geographically closer to the user. This takes the promotion of the “lower price guaranteed” to another level. What do you think?

Best regards and good luck.

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