Gerhard Laga, Head of E-Center at the Wirtschaftskammer Östereich, mentioned that this April a new Law (called the IKT-Konsolidierungsgesetz) had passed in the Austrian Parliament.
As from 1 January 2014 this law impacts the way you send e-invoices to the Federal Austrian Government. From then if you deliver goods or Services to the federal Austrian Government, you have to send it as structured e-invoices.
Austrian B2G e-invoicing legislation details
The new law is only available in German right now. So we translated the portion that deals with e-invoicing in Austria:
IKT-Konsolidierungsgesetz § 5 : e-invoice
- § 5. (1) An electronic invoice (e-invoice) is an invoice that is issued, transmitted, received and processed in an electronic format. The e-invoice will only be recognized as an invoice, if the authenticity of the origin, the integrity of the content and legibility are guaranteed. The e-invoice must contain at least the invoice features mentioned in § 11 abs. 1 of the 1994 UStG (Value Added Tax Law).The detailed regulations concerning the conditions of the used data structures for e-invoices, the transmission paths, and other requirements concerning the content of the e-invoice shall be adopted by a decree of the Federal Minister of Finance.
- (2) With the entry into force of this Federal Act, taking into account the transitional provisions of § 7, traffic of goods and services with federal agencies, all treaty partners or contractors with federal agencies or otherwise, are required to issue and deliver e-invoices in accordance with section § 5. (1) above. The obligation to issue and transfer e-invoices can be extended by order of the Federal Minister of Finance onto contractual partners or contractors of companies in accordance with Article 126b of the Federal Constitution (B-VG) in accordance with the technical possibilities.
- (3) Foreign contract partners or contractors of federal agencies are required to issue and deliver e-invoicing in accordance with the technical possibilities.
- (4) The contract partners and contractors have committed to send the e-invoice by using one of the portals made available by the Federal Minister of Finance.
- (5) Only after the successfully performed test on formal correctness and the resulting takeover by the federal agency, has the e-invoice properly been delivered.
Entry into force
- § 7 (1) This Act shall enter at the end of the day of publication in the Federal Law Gazette.
(2) The obligation in § 5 Part 2 (e-invoicing) entries into force at 1 January 2014.
Fragmented B2G Legislation
So there you have it. The Austrian Ministry of Finance is going to mandate e-invoicing using an EB interface via a dedicated governmental portal (which doesn’t work very intuitively). The Dutch government has its own portal, with its own UBL subset.
And as time goes on the list of EU Governments with proprietary B2G e-invoicing portals is growing. From that perspective, B2G e-invoicing is getting more and more fragmented, despite the new EU E-invoicing directive that is coming into force as from 2013. Strange. Isn’t it.
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