The future of VAT: reporting and invoicing in Sweden

The "Digital Transformation in VAT" conference has been organized and will take place on Wednesday, November 16, 2022, where national plans and various digital reporting models for specific countries will be introduced. One of them was for Sweden. More specifically, from the Swedish perspective, the future VAT reporting model was presented, but only in general and with no concrete information. One of the reasons is, for sure, that it has not been confirmed yet. After that, the Swedish authorities will start to work with concrete models and legislation.

The speaker from the Swedish tax agency made a comparison of how VAT reporting models were before, how they are now, and what expectations there are for the future. What is certain is that all EU countries are heading in the same direction: more data from invoices, real-time reporting models, data storage and access, network analysis and continuous reporting; and so on. The goal is for everything to be at a higher level and harmonized across the EU. It is also stated that transaction-based reporting will probably be a reality in Sweden within five to ten years.

Then, there was a word about some open questions in terms of how the e-invoice model will look and whether there are any alternatives. A comparison of the cost of implementations that are already known in some countries, not only in the EU, has been introduced, as have some requirements and regulations that must be made from a technical perspective and what the expected benefits of these models are for the State Tax Agency. After that, the speaker presented non-standardized and standardized models of sending invoices from consumers to the Tax Authority scheme and how data flow will look, but only a general approach in terms of how digitalizing these reports will be better than how it was before and how it will affect different sectors such as banks, accountants, ERP systems, public agencies, etc. and how it will affect different kinds of VAT relevant documents such as invoices, simplified invoices, orders, purchases to pay, etc., which is important, especially from the fiscalization perspective.