This as a recurring trend across Europe, where countries adopt EU legislation into their own Directives. This adoption offers advantages- offering greater standardisation and consistency with the EU VAT principles and regulations and aligning policies with other EU countries which have enacted similar legislation into their own domestic laws.

The public consultation covers the following:

• Change the VAT registration threshold to EUR 49,790.
• Regulate processes for VAT registration exemptions and cancellations
• Exempt VAT for EU-purchased or imported goods and services if made accessible free of charge
• Revise the VAT deduction requirement regulations for non-payment of VAT
• VAT requirements for refund
• Payment service providers’ recordkeeping duties for cross-border payments.

Feedback for the consultation is requested by 20 June 2022.

• June 2022: a test phase
• January 2023: first phase for B2G, G2G and G2B transactions

The second phase is also expected to start in 2023 and will be extended to also include B2B and B2C transactions.

Some key dates are summarised below:

• 2021: Ministry of Finance introduces a law regarding sending invoice structured data to the Financial Directorate; public consultation with stakeholders commences
• 2022: Law expected to finalise
• 2023: Law effective from this date
• 1 January 2024: obligation to use e-invoicing expected

The passing of the year between the ‘effective date’ and the obligation to use e-invoicing indicates that the Slovakian tax authorities acknowledge the difficulties that can be expected in the transition from paper to e-invoicing. This time should allow Slovakian taxpayers to familiarise themselves with the technical specifications, e-invoicing process and finer detail relating to e-invoicing.

Small businesses will get further assistance via a free online application ‘Virtual invoice’. This aims to reduce administrative burdens and offer a more simplified process to smaller businesses. This includes the ability to issue an invoice via a mobile phone and send this to the national e-invoice system.

A draft Act is due to be submitted for feedback shortly relating to invoicing and reporting data. The new law would include an obligation to report structured invoice data to the Financial Administration (FA) on a real-time basis, drawing some parallels with countries such as Hungary adopting a similar approach. The proposed date for implementation is 2023.

Slovakia aims to capture most taxpayers within the proposed changes with only minor exceptions, irrespective of their VAT registration status.

Company accounting software or a free online application would assist in the reporting procedure. As a brief overview, the FA would verify this data and send a QR code to the supplier, which should be added to the invoice.

But it is not only suppliers who are affected. Customers would also be affected. Customers would need to send data from received invoices before VAT deduction. Any breaches of the law could be significant, resulting in fines up €10,000.

• Simplify the current VAT declaration system;
• Reduce fraud;
• Reduce the administrative burden for businesses.

Public law entities and solution providers in the IT sectors will be contacted during the consultations to draw up a draft legislative text with their input.

• Simplify the current VAT declaration system;
• Reduce fraud;
• Reduce the administrative burden for businesses.

Public law entities and solution providers in the IT sectors will be contacted during the consultations to draw up a draft legislative text with their input.

The intention of the draft law is to introduce the obligation for all business entities to issue an invoice for each business transaction within a certain period of time. At the same time, invoice pre-clearance is also foreseen: the obligation to send specific invoice data to the Financial Administration before the final version of the invoice is prepared and sent to the buyer. Taxpayers can fulfil their invoice reporting obligations in various ways: using an e-invoicing service provider; directly from their accounting software/ERP using a certified communication method or using a free government portal. There will also be reporting obligations on the buyer.

Currently there is no more information or technical details available. We will continue to monitor Slovakia’s progress and report these in our upcoming e-invoicing updates.