5th Meeting - 30 March 2010
This was the first meeting in 2010 of the E-invoicing sub group.
The Council of Ministers decided in favour of a Proposal for a Council Directive amending the VAT Directive 2006/112/EC as regards the rules on invoicing on 16 March 2010. The document is now with the European Parliament for second reading. In principle the amendment should make the possibility of using e-invoices easier putting them on equal footing legally with paper invoices. However, concerns were expressed that there was a new requirement to obtain agreement from trading partners prior to issuing e-invoices (which wasn’t in the 2006 Directive) and about the process of transposition.
The meeting considered the European Commission’s consultation on the EU Expert Group on E-Invoicing’s Final Report. The closing date for responses had been the 26 February 2010. It was understood that there had been 86 replies. These were not yet public however and it was reported that the Commission intended to use the E-Invoicing Conference in Madrid at the end of April to deliver its response.
The Group had previously discussed the creation of an UK Advocacy Group for e-invoicing and there was support for SITPRO to provide the lead. As a starting point SITPRO had drafted a benefits paper for consideration by the Group. Comments were requested with a view to making it as robust as possible. In advance of the next meeting SITPRO would consider a work programme for the Advocacy Group and an influencing map/strategy.
In the same context the meeting took note of an E-Invoicing Guide for SMEs published by the European E-Business Lab. This was considered useful but possibly too lengthy to grab the attention of most SMEs. While there was interest in SITPRO doing something similar for UK SMEs it was thought best to get the Advocacy Group off the ground first.
Finally there was discussion of the E-Invoicing Conference in Madrid. SITPRO had applied to attend and has been wait-listed. It was determined who from around the table would be going with the request that they reported to the next meeting in September.
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