3 days ago
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The Belize Tax Service brought GST-registered businesses, technology providers and tax professionals together today for its E-Invoicing Solutions Expo. The event was held to help businesses prepare for the country’s move toward electronic invoicing. Participants were introduced to approved e-invoicing systems, viewed live demonstrations and received information on how the technology is expected to work. Director General of the Belize Tax Service, Michelle Longsworth, says the expo is an important part of preparing businesses for the transition.
Michelle Longsworth, Director General, Belize Tax Service: “So today the Expo actually brings e-invoicing from conversation to reality. Over the past 12 months we have been having sensitization sessions, we’ve been having our pilot project, we have been working with businesses and solution providers to bring us where we are today. So today is about us BTS saying to taxpayers this is what you need to have in place to be prepared for when e-invoicing comes on stream. The solution providers here today are here to showcase the solution that forms a bridge between a business accounting system and Vertex Belize the e-invoicing system. Today we offer the opportunity for taxpayers or businesses to ask the questions, get comfortable, know what they need to have in place. This is the time for us to support them. This is the voluntary phase. So the voluntary phase starts now. The mandatory phase starts next year. So we want to use this period for them to prepare so that there is no immediately next year you have to put it in place. No, we want to support you through the process. So it’s a phased approach.”
Business owners also had an opportunity to speak directly with software providers and tax officials about the implementation process. The Belize Tax Service says electronic invoicing is intended to simplify tax compliance, reduce paperwork and modernise the way tax information is submitted and processed. Longsworth explained the broader goal behind the initiative.
Michelle Longsworth, Director General, Belize Tax Service: “So e-invoicing is just the electronic format of exactly what invoices they issue manually today. So today you go to a store and they issue you an invoice with GST and remember this is only for GST registered businesses and it’s only business to business transactions. It’s not business to consumer transactions. So all that they are doing is now providing the tax department with the same invoices that they have to issue now in an electronic standardized format. We get that invoice or our systems get that invoice and it’s validated and returned to the business for them to issue. What does this do for the business? Presently the tax system is retrospective meaning that you file your return, you issue invoices and maybe six years later the tax department comes in and say we are going to do an audit six years ago, you have to provide to us all those invoices that you issued six years ago. What happens then? They have to go in their storerooms, maybe the paper has deteriorated, maybe they were using some electronic format but that format is an old system. So you have many reasons why there are delays with that. This provides for us as a tax administration to have those real time, which then lessens the need to do audits on all businesses. And then we are able to identify audits or validations that we need to do based on risk.”
The department says the expo forms part of its ongoing public-awareness and preparation efforts before electronic invoicing becomes mandatory for eligible businesses./
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