Sales e-invoice reporting goes ahead; purchase reporting to follow from 1 Jan 2022
Greece’s Ministry of Finance and Greek tax office, AADE, started the voluntary the rollout of its VAT transactional reporting from 1 July 2021 via e-invoice and e-book reporting. Sales invoice reporting started for the first wave of taxpayers on 1 October 2021. All businesses will be reporting sales invoices live by 1 January 2022.
Aside from digitisation benefits, taxpayers will now automatic VAT refunds on their returns where input VAT is in excess of the period’s sales VAT. This improves on lengthy delays of the past on credit refunds.
myDATA also replaces annual sales and purchase invoice listing. The last return covers 2021.
Greek e-book and e-invoice rollout
- 20 July 2021 – mandatory e-invoice sales invoices reporting on myDATA for taxpayers using certified outsourcing e-invoice providers
- 1 Oct – first wave of live sales invoice reporting via ERP’s for businesses with revenues in excess of €50,000
- 1 Nov – all other taxpayers to report sales
- 1 Nov – start of VAT cash registers implementation, with live point-of-sale reporting of till transactions
- 1 Jan 2022 – second wave of live sales and purchases invoice reporting via ERP’s
- 31 Mar 2022 – catch-up historical data for 2021 not already submitted must be presented
AADE’s myDATA portal will be available to all taxpayers for the new e-book filings, which must be completed by the 20th of the month following the transactions. This will be supplemented with the online cash register VAT system for retail transactions. AADE will use e-invoice to match with customer reporting to identify and return via myDATA any discrepancies. Check VAT Calc’s global live VAT invoice transaction and e-invoice reporting tracker to see where else real-time submissions of invoices is being implemented.
Greece’s transaction level reporting will come in two requirements:
- e-Books or Ledgers: General Ledger; Payroll; Fixed Assets, including amortisation. Cross-border transactions and B2C sales not included in e-Invoices
- e-Invoices: B2B sales and purchase invoices, which accounting coding data
From a technical perspective, the VAT books and the e-invoice data needs to be mapped and prepared in a pre-defined XML format. Then, this XML file needs to be submitted to the Greek AADE myDATA platform. The XML format follows the European EN 1691-1 standard.
The submission itself will be on a monthly or on a quarterly basis – depending on your current filing frequency and the respective requirements. The data submission needs to be completed before the 20th day after the end of the month in which the relevant invoices were issued.
Filing e-invoices and e-books submissions
There will be various routes for submitting e-invoices and e-books.
- Manual uploads for small numbers of invoices;
- From enabled ERP’s and accounting software linked to myDATA;
- Online certified cash registers which are connected to AADE; or
- Commercial providers of e-Invoicing services. These must be Greek-resident businesses. Providers must have demonstrated robust invoice creation, storage and retrieval systems to guarantee the integrity of invoices. The must also be Greek resident, and meet financial stability tests. Invoice data may be stored elsewhere in the EU.
You can use VAT Calc to calculate or verify Greek or global VAT / GST calculations on individual or batch transactions with our Advisor and Auditor services.
The ongoing EU VAT in the Digital Age proposals includes a strand around harmonised Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR) and Continuous Transaction Control (CTC) across the member states. This originated from the 2020 Tax Package measures for a fairer and more efficient EU tax regime.
