In Focus

State Gazette Highlights

August 10, 2020

State Gazette Highlights

In issue 68 dated 31 July 2020, the following have been promulgated:

1. Ordinance on amendment and supplement to Ordinance No Н-18 от 2006 on the registration and reporting through fiscal devices of retail sales, the requirements for software to manage sales and requirements for the entities carrying sales through e-shops

The significant changes are related to:

1.1 Documenting payments through postal money order:

• It is specified that upon payment by means of postal money order, the payment document shall be issued:

1. on paper, and shall accompany the goods and be provided to the customer together with the goods; or
2. electronically, not later than the moment when the goods leave the entity’s retail outlet, and upon rendering services – not later than paying for the service.

• If a tax document is issued for the sale pursuant to Art. 112 of VATA, containing the data under Art. 26, Para 1, 4 7 and 8 of the Ordinance, with the exception of the tax group code, there is no requirement for the issuance of a document under Art. 3, Para 1, sentence two of the Ordinance.

1.2 Documenting payments upon e-shop sales:

• Upon sales of goods through an e-shop, which are registered and reported by issuance of a paper fiscal slip, the slip is issued pursuant to Art. 26, Para 2 (i.e. following the procedure to document door-to-door sales, namely by issuance of a receipt by the seller, which is transferred to the courier, or by issuance of a receipt from a mobile fiscal device on site upon handover of the goods/services). In the case of rendering services through an e-shop, the slip is issued and provided to the customer not later than the point of payment for the service.
• Upon sales of goods through an e-shop, which are registered and reported by issuance of an electronically-generated fiscal/system slip, the slip is issued and provided to the customer not later than the point at which the goods leave the outlet from which they are delivered. In the case of rendering services, the slip is issued and provided to the customer not later than the point of payment for the service.

1.3 A new provision is created (Art. 26a) regulating partial payment for sales paid in cash:

• A permission is made for fiscal device (FD) or integrated automated commercial management system (IACMS) to be programmed in such a way that sales are registered in a department under the summary name of “Partial payments”, used to register all amounts received under partial payments. Upon final payments, all goods and services are registered, following which a value discount is made equal to the amount paid in advance.
• In case of door-to-door sale, when the fiscal slip is issued before receiving the payment, sales may be registered in a separate department under the name of “Door-to-door sales”.

1.4 Changes are introduced regarding the reporting of sales to trustees

1.5 Changes are introduced to Art. 52 h of the Ordinance in relation to outlet sales management software (OSMS) users:

• The requirements to software under Art. 52а¹ of the Ordinance have been relieved;
• The scope of sales that may be managed through OSMS in the health sector has been expanded, adding sales of medical services fully or partially funded by the Ministry of Health;
• The procedure for declaring new OSMS versions has been facilitated;
• A possibility has been envisaged for testing an OSMS at a retail outlet. In relation thereto, it is planned to submit to NRA information about the software tested, the test environment and the period of testing;
• A restriction has been imposed on dividing the sales management process at a single retail outlet between more than one software. In this case, all software used at the outlet are regarded as a single OSMS;
• When the taxable person works with more than one OSMS, sales information exchange is permitted between the software used in accordance with the requirements of Appendix 41;
• A possibility has been envisaged for import into OSMS of information from another OSMS or non-OSMS software, in accordance with the requirements of Appendix 42;
• When an entity using OSMS also makes sales through an e-shop, the e-shop software may not meet the requirements of Appendix 29, if the orders made to the e-shop are registered (imported) in the sales management software used by the entity (Art. 52 h, Para 11);
• When an entity under Art. 3, Para 17 (i.e. sales through an e-shop that only accepts remote payment through debit/credit card) uses OSMS at a retail outlet, this outlet may also manage through the software its e-shop sales, if the sales are managed separately in each software. The entity may manage all sales made in the sales management software in accordance with the requirements of Appendix 42;
• The database created by the software may only be stored on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria or an EU member state.

1.6 Changes in the requirements to entities performing sales through an e-shop:

• A change has been made to Art. 62m, Para 2 of the Ordinance in order to facilitate economic operators in the field of tourism upon submission of information to NRA regarding the e-shops/platforms used thereby for selling their services. In the cases of contracts concluded with intermediaries to offer tourist services in the internet, the entities only have these intermediaries’ data, but not information about what websites or internet platforms their service will be offered on. Therefore, the entity shall only submit to NRA data about the intermediaries with whom it has concluded contracts.
• The information under Art. 52 q of the Ordinance to be submitted to NRA by e-shops only accepting payments through a virtual POS has been made precise, namely:
• the taxable person shall declare the payment accounts in which it receives payments for sales of goods or services, irrespective of whether they are connected directly with the virtual POS provided to the person by a payment service provider (PSP) or are accounts to which the amounts received at a PSP’s virtual POS are transferred;
• a virtual POS number shall be declared when it is directly connected to the taxable person’s payment account;
• a PSP’s virtual POS number shall be declared when it is connected to a PSP’s payment account from which the amounts received are transferred to the entity’s payment account – if such is used.
• The requirement stating that if the software interface is not in Bulgarian, the seller shall have a Bulgarian translation of the information and data submitted to NRA as early as upon submission of information about the e-shop under Art. 52 m shall be removed. According to the amendments, the seller shall submit a translation into Bulgarian only upon the request of the revenue body.

1.7 Changes have been made to the definitions of OSMS (§ 1, item 19) and POS terminal and virtual POS terminal (§1, item 25 of the supplementary provisions to the Ordinance).

1.8 Changes have been made to the Appendices to the Ordinance, including Appendix 29, Appendix 32 and Appendix 33, regarding the declaration of OSMS by producers, users and persons performing e-shop sales.

1.9 New Appendices have been added to the Ordinance, namely Appendix 41 to Art. 52 h, Para 9 “Requirements regarding the exchange of information about sales (import) between sales management software used by the same taxable person” and Appendix 42 to Art. 52 h, Para 10 and 11 “Requirements regarding the import into OSMS of information for sales from e-shop software and other sources and software not used for sales management”.

1.10 Extending terms under the Ordinance:

• The entities under Art. 3 of the Ordinance which use sales management software, irrespective of whether they have been registered under VATA, shall achieve compliance with the Ordinance with respect to the software used by 28 February 2021. These persons shall submit information in accordance with Appendix 32 by 30 April 2021. Л
• The entities under Art. 3 of the Ordinance which sell goods or services through an e-shop and do not use a sales management software for sales made through the e-shop other than the e-shop software, shall achieve compliance with all requirements of the Ordinance by 31 May 2021.
• The entities under Art. 3 of the Ordinance which, Para 1, which perform sales of goods and services through an e-shop and also use another sales management software in addition to the e-shop software, shall achieve compliance with all requirements of the Ordinance by 28 February 2021.
• The taxable persons shall comply with the Ordinance’s requirements for fiscal devices by 31 December 2020.

The Ordinance shall be effective as from 31 July 2020.

Important! On 31 July 2020 on the Ministry of Finance website a notice was published about forthcoming changes to the provisions of the Added Value Tax Act (VATA), aimed at repealing the requirements for reporting sales through sales management software (OSMS) at retail outlets. The repeal of provisions regarding OSMS is related to the public outcry in the process of compliance with the requirements of Ordinance No Н-18/2006 and signals about increased administrative burden and costs for the business, which, especially in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, make the operations of taxable persons significantly more difficult. After the VATA amendments are enforced, amendments will also be made to Ordinance Н-18/2006 to align it with VATA by means of repeal of the requirements regarding OSMS.

2. Ordinance on amendment and supplement to Ordinance 2/2005 on keeping and storing the property registry

Ordinance on amendment and supplement to Ordinance

The Ordinance shall be effective as from 4 August 2020.

3. Ordinance on amendment and supplement to Ordinance 1/2004 on the minimum amounts of lawyers’ fees

            The Ordinance shall be effective as from 4 August 2020.

Go to the full issue 68 dated 31 July 2020:

http://dv.parliament.bg/DVWeb/broeveList.faces

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