Technical documentation for SAF-T updated and published in the Taxpayer's Guide

Summary:
The Standard Audit File for Tax is an international standard for the electronic exchange of reliable accounting data between taxpayers and tax authorities. This standard was developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2005. The latest version is the OECD SAF-T 2.0, a version on which the Romanian authorities also rely. The informative statement D406 (SAF-T) is an electronic file, based on XML, internationally standardized for sending tax reports, including VAT reporting, from taxpayers to tax authorities.

The Taxpayer's Guide also provides a number of clarifications in relation to reporting deadlines, taxpayers’ obligations, potential fines, as well as certain technical specifications relating to the mandatory elements.

Main points of interest for Taxpayers

Submission deadlines
According to the Taxpayer's Guide, the informative statement D406 should be submitted in electronic format. The submission deadline is:

• No later than the last calendar day of the month following the reporting period (calendar month / quarter, as appropriate, for information other than Inventory and Fixed Assets).
• No later than the deadline for submitting the financial statements for the financial year, in the case of the information statement D406 – Fixed Assets.
• By the deadline established by the tax authorities, which may not be less than 30 calendar days from the date of the request, in the case of the informative statement D406 – Inventory.

The requirement to provide the SAF-T file
By Order of the President of the Romanian Tax authorities, the requirement to submit the informative statement D406 for each type of taxpayer has been established as follows:

• For large taxpayers – starting from 1 January 2022.
• For medium taxpayers, during 2022 (exact date unspecified).
• For small taxpayers – from 2023.
• For newly registered taxpayers - from the effective date of registration. The first submission of the information statement D406 should be made on the last day of the month following the reporting period, as per the reference date for the category in which they were registered.

Taxpayers must file the Information statement D406 either monthly or quarterly, in accordance with their Value Added Tax (VAT) reporting obligation. Taxpayers which are not registered for VAT purposes should submit the SAF-T file on a quarterly basis.

Applicable fines
Failure to submit the informative statement D406, within the deadlines provided by law, or submitting incorrect or incomplete information, will be subject to fines, in accordance with the provisions of art. 337 of the Fiscal Procedure Code (Law 207/2015) – Fines in the case of recapitulative statements (which will also be applied to the SAF-T File). The fines are as follows:

• A fine ranging from RON 1,000 to RON 5,000 for failure to submit this statement within the legal deadline.
• A fine ranging from RON 500 to RON 1,500 for submitting incorrect or incomplete statements.

However, given that this reporting requirement is complex and new, taxpayers will be given a three-month grace period for the first statements, from the date when the submission requirements become effective for the each category of taxpayer. For example, failure to submit, or the submission of incorrect or incomplete SAF-T File, for January, February and March 2022 will not lead to a fine, if these are corrected and submitted completely no later than the last day of April 2022, or within a maximum of 3 months from the date of the first submission deadline for the first information statement D406.

In order to prepare for this new compliance requirement, the Romanian tax authorities will provide taxpayers a voluntary testing program prior to the introduction of the deadlines. During the voluntary testing period, any taxpayer can test the informative statement D406T, which also includes the XML file in SAF-T format without the transmitted data being taken into account in the fiscal analyses carried out by the Romanian tax authorities.

The voluntary testing program is also open to suppliers of financial-accounting applications, ERP systems and / or other types of applications with which taxpayers will prepare and submit the informative statement D406.

According to current information, the voluntary testing program for the informative Statement D406T will start on 16 August 2021.

We recommend that all taxpayers (not just Large Taxpayers) begin preparations to ensure that they are able to comply with the new requirements, to analyse in detail their internal IT systems and to identify the best and most efficient solutions to collect the information needed to complete informative statement D406.

KPMG can support taxpayers with a mixed team of professionals, who specialize in both tax and IT and can find effective solutions to this new challenge.