In September 2023, DG TAXUD initiated the FPG 042 project group under the Fiscalis Programme to develop a Solution Architecture Templates (SAT) for Trans-European Systems with the support of DG DIGIT. The outcome of the project resulted in producing a SAT on “B2B intra-community e-invoicing reporting” based on the eGovERA Tax Reference Architecture. The SAT supports the national tax administrations of Member States to implement the e-invoicing requirements required by the EU’s new Value-Added Tax (VAT) in the Digital Age (ViDA) legislation.
The SAT was based on the following elements:
- Applicable legislation (i.e., Proposal for a COUNCIL DIRECTIVE amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards VAT rules for the digital age)
- Functional and technical specifications defined by the FPG 042 participants and the ViDA legislation
- European interoperability framework (EIF)
- European interoperability reference architecture (EIRA©)
- eGovERA© Tax Reference Architecture
- eGovERA© Business Agnostic Reference Architecture
The intervention logic was as it follows:
- The European Commission and the FPG 042 jointly identified the functional and technical requirements on functionalities applicable to the use case
- The European Commission and the FPG 042 jointly co-created an analysis model and a partial design model of the target solution. The still to be done work was minimized as much as possible for Member States.
- The European Commission disseminated the model with requirements and a partial design of the target solution to the Member States. The model is available here in HTML format and in the attachments in ArchiMate® (an Enterprise Architecture modelling language) format.
After the project, Member States will need to finalise the still to be done work on their own (i.e. procurement/own development/reuse/etc.) producing a full design of the target solution, implement it and testing it via EC tools (i.e. ITestBed). Guidelines are available in the attachments.
The Business/public value of the SAT for “B2B intra-community e-invoicing reporting” based on the eGovERA© Tax Reference Architecture provides a usable SAT for Member States’ tax administrations to analyse the requirements of the application of ViDA e-invoicing changes. Another added value is the knowledge sharing across countries of EIRA© & eGovERA© in analysing and implementing digital public services.