E-invoices are no longer a new concept for taxpayers, however, to keep up with the development of digital technology, the digitization of invoices on an information technology platform will contribute to supporting taxpayers, especially businesses in optimizing the management and declaration of invoices. To concretize this issue, Circular 78/2021/TT-BTC (“Circular 78”) takes effect from July 1, 2022, stipulating some contents about e-invoices, including the following: that businesses need to pay attention to.

Effectiveness of legal documents from 1 July  2022

Although Circular 78 will not officially come into force until mid-2022, from now on, enterprises that meet the conditions on information technology infrastructure are encouraged to apply regulations on electronic invoices and vouchers under the guidance in this Circular and Decree No. 123/2020/ND-CP before 1 July 2022 as a stepping stone to completely abolish paper invoices when the circular comes into effect.

Furthermore, from July 1, 2022, the circulars and decisions of the Ministry of Finance related to invoices issued before will cease to be effective.

Implementation road

The implementation of Circular 78 is carried out in two phases, according to which:

• Phase 1 from November 2021 to March 2022: enterprises located in 6 provinces: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Phu Tho, and Binh Dinh will initially apply electronic invoices;
• Phase 2 from April 2022 to July 2022, all enterprises across the country will apply.

Sellers are authorized to issue electronic invoices

Currently, the authorization of invoicing, including e-invoices, is regulated in Circular No. 39/2014/TT-BTC. However, this operation is regulated more specifically and clearly in Circular 78. Accordingly, sellers and service providers who are enterprises, economic organizations, and other organizations are entitled to authorize third parties to issue e-invoices, provided that the third party has an affiliated relationship with the sellers, is eligible to use e-invoices, and is not in the situation of discontinuing using of e-invoices.

Solutions to cases where the invoice is found errors when sent to the tax authority

The new circular lists the cases of errors and solutions, specifically:

• In case of errors, the tax authority’s code must be re-issued or some errors need to be adjusted or replaced. As a remedy, the seller may follow two ways by either sending an adjustment notice of (a) each invoice; or (b) multiple erroneous invoices to the tax authority at any time but no later than the last day of the VAT declaration period for which the revised e-invoice is generated;
• In case the e-invoice has been made with errors and the seller has handled the invoices in the way of adjustment or replacement, then the invoice is discovered to continue to include errors, in the next processing times, the seller will follow the way applied when handling errors for the first time;
• In case an invoice is issued when collecting money before or during service provision, then there is a cancellation or termination of service provision, the seller shall cancel the e-invoice which has been made and notify the tax authority on the invoice cancellation;
• If the e-invoice is made without the invoice model number, invoice symbol, or invoice number, the seller will only correct the invoice without having to cancel or replace it.

The use of e-invoices helps enterprises reduce costs more than using paper invoices. In addition, e-invoices also help enterprises reduce the cost of complying with tax administrative procedures.