Electronic VAT accounting

The Swiss e-government strategy focuses on the benefits and efficiency of government business as a strategic goal. The associated Priority Plan 2017 - 2019 provides, as one of eleven operational goals, for companies liable for VAT to be able to handle regular VAT accounting electronically without media discontinuity. This will greatly ease the administrative burden on the companies concerned.

The following three steps or milestones have been defined for the implementation of electronic VAT invoicing:

• Specification of the VAT declaration data
• Extension of the existing portal solution ESTV SuisseTax (XML upload)
• Creation of an interface for the machine-machine input of accounting data

On behalf of and in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA), Eraneos prepared the interface specification, consisting of the description of the interface and the associated XML schema. The eGovernment standard eCH-0217: eMWST, which is based on the specification, was published at the beginning of September 2017, marking the first milestone in Switzerland's eGovernment strategy. The standard is now available for implementation by manufacturers of ERP systems.

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