Australia proposing “Business eInvoicing Right”

The Australian Government has announced a proposal to create a “Business eInvoicing Right” (BER) with a staggered approach from July 1, 2023. Under this proposed initiative, customers would have the right to be able to request that suppliers issue an electronic invoice to them instead of paper invoices. The aim of this BER is to support wider business adoption of e-invoicing by giving businesses the certainty that when they invest in e-invoicing, that they would be able to make use of it with their trading partners. Under the proposal, large businesses will need to be able to comply with the BER by July 1, 2023, medium businesses by July 1, 2024 and small businesses by July 1, 2025.

The Australian Government is now seeking wider stakeholder feedback on the idea of a BER and further ways to support business adoption of e-invoicing. The consultation is open until January 25, 2022 and all interested parties are invited to participate.

By way of background, Australia and New Zealand both announced the adoption of the Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL) framework for e-invoicing in February 2019. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) operates the Australian Peppol Authority.  Unlike pre-clearance e-invoicing models, the ATO does not receive a copy of the e-invoice and is not able to view the contents of any e-invoices being transmitted between businesses. However, the ATO have defined the Australian requirements for use of the PEPPOL standards and therefore the e-invoices must meet the usual GST tax invoicing requirements. Businesses in Australia wishing to issue e-invoices, must connect to the PEPPOL network through an access point, generally through a third party service provider.

Australia joins a growing list of countries in the APAC region to encourage or mandate the use of e-invoicing, including Vietnam and India.

Find out more about Avalara's e-invoicing solutions.