Until now, the Value Added Tax Act (“VAT Act”) envisaged that receipts could be provided electronically (to the customer's email) only when selling goods or services through an e-shop or if the trader uses special software, approved and included in a list of the National Revenue Agency (“NRA”), which ensures that the electronically issued receipts meet all regulatory requirements.
The new law regulates two additional hypotheses under which traders will be able to benefit from the option for digital issuing of receipts, namely - if they use the so-called “integrated automated system for commercial activity management” or “electronic system with fiscal memory” in the commercial site (often used in fuel transactions).
When the receipt is sent electronically, the general principle that the consumer may refuse to pay the price until he receives the receipt will not apply, i.e. the goods or services will be paid in advance. The argument for this is the following - it is theoretically possible that a receipt which is sent electronically may be received by the consumer late or in the spam folder, or not received at all due to technological reasons, which cannot be attributed to the fault of the trader.
The initial draft envisaged another hypothesis under which traders will be able to benefit from the eased procedure and issue receipts digitally, namely - if the NRA has established (with respect to particular trader) a low risk of non-payment of the tax according to a methodology adopted by the very authority. However, this possibility is not stipulated in the final law, which means that the scope of the amendments is still limited to some extent.
Following the adoption of the amendments, it is now permissible, and even desirable, for cash devices (i.e. fiscal devices and integrated automated systems for the management of commercial activity) to display the price of the purchased goods in another currency, i.e. euro, in view of the expected adoption of this currency in the country. This is likely to be linked to the obligations of traders after the date of introduction of the euro, namely - to display the prices of goods in both currencies (lev and euro) for a period of 12 months and to accept payments in both lev and euro within 1 month of the same date.
Respectively, persons using fiscal devices in their activities will have to undertake appropriate organizational and technological actions to modify their functionalities, which in turn must be done through procedures for the approval of standard fiscal devices by the relevant state authorities.
