3 major obligations as a result of which companies may be caused to sustain significant IT costs. The State Tax Inspectorate is developing a smart tax administration system (further – i.MAS). Accordingly, taxpayers will be obliged to provide to the State Tax Inspectorate with more information on their activity. In April 2016 the State Tax Inspectorate published the approved rules specifying details of the information that taxpayers will be obliged to submit. Therefore, companies must begin to prepare, i.e. review their procedures, assess additional incidental time costs related to the new obligations and make decisions in terms of the improvement of their accounting systems. As a result, companies shall evaluate necessary IT support in order to comply with forthcoming novelties.
From 1 October 2016 the first subsystems of i.MAS will become operative:
- i.SAF subsystem (electronic invoicing subsystem) for the submission of register data on company’s received and issued VAT invoices;
- i.VAZ subsystem (electronic consignment note subsystem) for the submission of consignment note information to the State Tax Inspectorate.
Please note that Lithuanian entities must provide information on i.SAF and i.VAZ from the “first euro”, i.e. there are no determined limits for data submission.
Alongside with the abovementioned rules, State Tax Inspectorate published the technical specification and technical requirements for standard accounting data file management (i.SAF-T subsystem). From 2017 such data file must be ready to provide to the State Tax Inspectorate by the companies with net sales revenue over EUR 8 million. Until 2020 this limit will be gradually reduced to EUR 45 000.
Below we present more detailed information on the novelties that await the Lithuanian taxpayers upon the launch of i.SAF, i.VAZ and i.SAF-T subsystems:
1. Registers of received and issued VAT invoices (i.SAF)
Data on the received and issued VAT invoices (hereinafter referred as “Registers”) must be provided by taxable persons, registered in Lithuania as VAT payers, i.e. both Lithuanian or foreign taxable persons. Before i.MAS system comes into effect register data on VAT invoices must be presented to the State Tax Inspectorate only upon the request of tax administrator (upon the submission of forms FR0671 and FR0672).
Obligation to provide Registers falls to VAT payers who carry out:
- economic (liable to and/or free of VAT) and
- non-economic activity (e.g. state or municipal functions).
It must be noted that:
- Register of received VAT invoices must declare all VAT invoices received both from Lithuanian or foreign taxable persons, including credit notes.
- Register of issued VAT invoices must declare all the issued VAT invoices, including VAT invoices that formalise the production of fixed tangible assets, credit notes or invoices that formalise the sale of goods (services) for private needs, etc.
Detailed list of VAT invoices, which must be indicated on Registers, is presented in the “Rules on the Management and Submission of Register Data of Value Added Tax Invoices”.
In the given Registers it is not mandatory to register VAT exempt financial documents free of VAT and VAT exempt documents of acquisition/issue of insurance services, which are considered as VAT invoices (e.g. statements of account, insurance policies).
Data to the State Tax Inspectorate will be provided by electronic means only:
- by submitting data file of Registers on i.SAF in XML format;
- by using web service for the submission of data file on i.SAF;
- by entering register data on i.SAF;
- by issuing VAT invoices directly onto i.SAF.
Thus, upon the launch of the new system, the present forms FR0671 and FR0672 for received and issued VAT invoices will become obsolete.
Please note that the term for the submission of Registers will not be the same as for the submission of VAT declarations (VAT declarations must be submitted within the 25th day of the coming month).
Register data of fiscal period must be submitted to the State Tax Inspectorate as follows:
- of the calendar month – within the 20th day of the coming month;
- of the calendar half year – within the 20th day of the first month of the coming half year;
- of any other determined fiscal period – not later than within 20 days from the end of such period.
Taxable persons, registered as VAT payers, who have calendar month as fiscal period, must submit the first registers of the fiscal month of October 2016 not later than within the 21st of November.
Rules on the management and submission of registers and the description of i.SAF data file in Lithuanian and English are published on the website of the State Tax Inspectorate. Please click on the following links to see the published documents:
- Rules for processing and reporting of data in the registers of VAT invoices
- Description of I.SAF data file
2. Submission of consignment note data (i.VAZ)
From 1 October 2016 it will be mandatory to submit consignment notes to the State Tax Inspectorate in case all of the below conditions are met:
- freight is loaded and transported by road transport means only within the territory of the Republic of Lithuania;
- shipper and consignee are natural or legal entities that carry out economic activity;
- in terms of freight carriage there is commercial relation between the shipper and/or consignee, and/or transporter, and/or transport organiser, and/or other person authorised thereby.
It must be underlined that consignment notes must be submitted to the State Tax Inspectorate by the issuer of consignment notes, i.e. the tax payer, who is the shipper, or any other person, authorised by the shipper to issue consignment notes.
Consignment note data will be provided to the State Tax Inspectorate by electronic means only:
- by submitting consignment note data file on i.VAZ in XML format, drawn up according to the requirements of the State Tax Inspectorate;
- by using web service for the submission of data file on i.VAZ;
- by entering consignment note data directly on i.VAZ system.
Issuer of consignment notes must submit consignment note data on i.VAZ not earlier than 7 days before the freight shipping date and not later than the freight shipping date and time, specified on the consignment note. Thus, consignment note data, differently from tax returns, must be registered constantly considering the freight shipment date.
- Rules for the submission of data on the Consignment Notes and Other goods transport documents to the State Tax Inspectorate (i.VAZ)
- Description of I.VAZ data file
3. Standardized accounting file (i.SAF-T)
From 1 January 2017 profit-making persons (except for the certain cases, e.g. economic entities with initiated bankruptcy case, etc.), whose net sales revenue exceeds EUR 8 million in financial year 2015, must be ready to submit accounting data of the incoming and subsequent periods.
For the first year this obligation is established for the largest companies, whereas from 2018 the number of companies, which will be requested to present accounting data to the State Tax Inspectorate, will increase due to the reduction of the binding limit:
- from 1 January 2018, if net sales revenue exceeds EUR 700 000 in financial year 2016;
- from 1 January 2019 if net sales revenue exceeds EUR 45 000 in financial year 2017;
- from 1 January 2020 and subsequent years, if net sales revenue exceeds EUR 45 000 in the previous financial year.
Upon the request by the State Tax Inspectorate, the above given companies will be obliged to submit a standard accounting data file, which includes the entity’s accounting data for the accounting period, exported from the entity’s accounting system and covering a certain period. Practically, it signifies that companies must programme their accounting system in order to enable the export of data from the current company’s chart of accounts to the standard chart of accounts, approved by the State Tax Inspectorate.
Upon the necessity to submit accounting data file to the State Tax Inspectorate, companies must present such information by electronic means, namely XML format.
Requirements on the standardised format of the data to be submitted to the State Tax inspectorate are defined in the technical specifications of SAF-T. The description is published on the website of the State Tax Inspectorate in both Lithuanian and English languages: Technical Specification and Technical Requirements for Standard Accounting Data File. English version of documents can be downloaded by choosing titles “neoficialus vertimas į anglų kalbą”.
