Strong momentum in Latin America.

The electronic invoice has taken a strong momentum in Latin America, with Brazil, Chile and Mexico as the most advanced countries in this field. Other countries such as Ecuador, Uruguay and Peru have shown remarkable progress in the matter. In addition, other important tax administrations such as those of Guatemala, Colombia and Paraguay are developing similar projects.

World leader.

As a result, the region is consolidating as a world leader and an example for other countries of the five continents. This is great news, since this leadership includes the use of state-of-the-art technology and the interaction between public and private sectors for its implementation and use. Each country has been able to benefit from the characteristics of the original project (implemented in Chile), but taking advantage of the learned experience and new technologies, which progress annually, to build better models of this type of invoicing. Thus, it is possible to identify, as the most important factor of success in the development of a good project, the ability to create real tailored solutions, adjusted to the existing legislation and the characteristics of the taxpayers and tax administrations of each country.

Taxpayers’ benefits.

The implementation of electronic invoicing has worried some taxpayers. This fear was caused in some cases by ignorance of the technology, or reluctance to share information with the tax administration. In spite of this, important groups of taxpayers have seen a great opportunity in the use of electronic invoicing to lower their operating costs and improve processes inside companies, reducing the inherent operational risks. These taxpayers have been strong supporters of the tax administrations at the time of “evangelizing” about the use of electronic invoicing. This implies that, as a result, making mandatory the use of the electronic invoices triggers productivity improvements in the countries that adopt them.

Benefits for the tax administration.

For the tax administration, the real purpose of having to implement electronic invoicing is the goal of decreasing the tax evasion. Now, this is not achieved with the mere fact of implementing it. We reach this goal, with great efforts, by making its use mandatory and implementing controls and crossings of information using the information obtained. It also requires a level of information quality, superior to those normally handled by a tax administration, and making available strong computerized processes and storage capacities.

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