South Africa: Getting VAT invoices from your suppliers

South African authorities have strict rules for what constitutes a valide VAT invoice. The "invoiced to" name must be exactly the same as name that appears on your business registration with the South African government. We recommend that supplier contracts reflect the correct name to enable them to issue correct invoices. There are two sets of requirements depending on the invoice amount:

FULL TAX INVOICE
this is required where the supply (including VAT) exceeds R5000

Contains the words “Tax Invoice”, “VAT Invoice” or “Invoice”
Name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier
Name, address and where the recipient is a vendor, the recipient’s VAT registration number
Serial number and date of issue of invoice
Accurate description of goods and /or services (indicating where applicable that the goods are second hand goods)
Quantity or volume of goods or services supplied
Value of the supply, the amount of tax charged and the consideration of the supply (value and the tax)

Note: all seven criteria must be met for the invoice to meet the requirements of a Tax Invoice

ABRIDGED TAX INVOICE
where the supply (including VAT) is greater than R50 and less than R5000

Contains the words “Tax Invoice”, “VAT Invoice” or “Invoice”
Name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier
Serial number and date of issue of invoice
Accurate description of goods and /or services
Value of the supply, the amount of tax charged and the consideration of the supply (value and the tax)

As with all countries, it's paramount that you receive a valide VAT invoice so that the VAT paid out can be claimed back in the periodical VAT returns.

Ireland VAT filing periods

Most countries require monthly or quarterly VAT returns to be submited to the tax authorites. Ireland charts its own course in this respect. The standard reporitng period is bi monthly, 6 VAT returns per year. For entities with less than 14,000 EUR of yearly VAT turnover, triannual VAT returns are possible, 3 VAT returns per year. In both cases, the VAT returns will need to be submited by the 23rd day of the follwoing month after the end of a period.

2018: Saudi Arabia VAT

It has been confirmed that Saudi Arabia will impose a 5% VAT on certain goods and services. The full scope and impact isn't known yet. Further details will follow before next years implementation.

Norway: New daily penalties for 2017

From 2017, the Norwegian tax administration have the possibility to issue daily fines for late submission of reports, which should be reported to the tax office. 

Penalties for late submissions can be issued for the following reports:

·         VAT returns
·         Tax returns (air passenger tax, environmental tax, etc.)
·         A-melding (salary reports)
·       RF-1199 (contract reports)
·       Annual returns

The daily fines are NOK 524,50 (maximum of NOK 52 450 in total).

Netherlands: Food for thought

If you are organizing an event in the Netherlands, special consideration must be given to food and catering for your event. In order for the VAT on food and catering to be claimed in the quarterly VAT returns, it must be recharged to the participants. The registration fee must clearly include a charge for food and catering as a separate amount. The nature of the services must also be considered. Contact your tax expert for more details (that's us!)

More VAT in your pockets

When you are registered for the local sales tax in a given jurisdiction, your association will be able to claim the taxes paid out on business expenses incurred in that country. Each country has its own set of rules that dictate what expenses are eligible to claim the VAT back on, but to maximize the coming back to you, its important to request valide tax invoices from your suppliers. A proforma, deposit invoice, quote or information bill cant be sued to claim the VAT back. Your associations name must also appear on these invoices. In our experience, its always better to ask suppliers for these documents before making final payments. These suppliers are legally required to supply you with an valide tax invoice.

MOSS Threshold Proposition

The European Commission has proposed that a VAT registration threshold for cross border sales of electronic services be introduced in 2018.  This would allow businesses with very small turnovers to avoid having to declare electronic sales through the MOSS (Mini one stop shop) introduced by the EU in 2015.

The threshold is expected to be 10,000 EUR.  Furthermore, the propositions includes measures to reduce the complexity of the filing requirements for businesses with a turnover bellow 100,000 EUR.

Italy 2017: VAT rate

The planed VAT rate increase for 2017 has been pushed back as in 2016. These tax increases are tied into the performance of Italy's economy. If the economy peforms over a certain level, the increase in postponed. For now, the planed increase for 2018 is 24% and a further increase of 24.9% in 2019. The current rate remains at 22%.

Italy 2017: New VAT Communications and other changes

Two new VAT communications will be introduced in the Italian VAT system starting from the year 2017.

The first one is the “Communication of the data of the periodical VAT liquidations” (also called “quarterly VAT Return”) and the second one is the “communication of the data contained in the issued and received invoices” (also called “quarterly spesometro Return”)

Both communications will have to be filed by electronic means each quarter

The amount of the penalties foreseen in case of non-compliance have been also updated compared with the previous text of the Decree.

All the operators (VAT registered in Italy, resident or non-resident) are obliged to file such communications.

In addition, the new law introduces the following changes:

- the ceiling to obtain an Italian VAT refund without being obliged to file a bank warranty will be raised up to Euro 30.000 on a yearly basis (currently the ceiling is Euro 15.000);

- the Italian VAT numbers that have been inactive during the past 3 years will be terminated by authority by the Italian Revenue Agency.

Some previous communications with the Italian authorities will be abolished as a result of these changes. 

These changes highlight the importance of dealing with knowledgeable consultants in Italy to be able to navigate through all this red tape.

Canada incentive program for Foreign meetings

Canada has one of the most straight forward and advantageous conference incentive programs. If most of your participants are from outside Canada, or non residents as per Revenue Canada speak, your association won't be required to charge sales taxes on any registrations or exhibitors space rentals and most of the sales taxes paid out on convention related supplies will be refunded to you through the rebate program. A little known fact is that this program can apply, in certain cases, to a Canadian association as well, not only a non established association. Contact us for more information.