Clarify that electronic bills and paper bills have the same legal effect

The Ministry of Finance revised the "Administrative Measures on Fiscal Bills"

　　□ Our reporter Wan Jing

　　Recently, the Ministry of Finance issued a decision to amend the "Administrative Measures for Fiscal Invoices" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"), which includes the addition of fiscal electronic bills management content, standardizes related management procedures, and clearly states that fiscal electronic bills and paper bills have the same legal effect content.

Electronic bills have laws to follow

　　According to statistics, as of the end of June 2020, more than 400 million fiscal electronic bills have been issued nationwide, involving nearly one trillion yuan, covering all industries and bill types.

　　Fiscal bills refer to government agencies, public institutions, social groups and other organizations with public management or public service functions that are supervised (printed), issued, and managed by the financial department to collect government non-tax revenue or collect non-profit activities in accordance with the law. In the case of property, a certificate issued to citizens, legal persons and other organizations.

　　"With the continuous advancement of reforms, the issue of the unclear legal status of fiscal electronic bills has gradually become prominent, and some of the provisions in the "Measures" have gradually become difficult to meet the needs of reforms and practical work." The person in charge of the Ministry of Finance said that in order to further strengthen the management of fiscal bills To meet the needs of digital China, digital government, and the modernization of national governance systems and governance capabilities, to implement the requirements for deepening the reform of decentralization, management and service, and to fully implement the reform of financial electronic bills management, the "Measures" need to be revised.

　　It is worth noting that, in order to make the management of financial electronic bills legal, the new regulations have added the relevant content of financial electronic bills and standardized the entire process of electronic bill use management.

The new regulations clarify the legal status of electronic bills and stipulate that "fiscal electronic bills and paper bills have the same legal effect and are an important basis for financial supervision, audit supervision, etc.".

All relevant units (such as medical insurance departments and commercial insurance units) can use financial electronic bills as legal vouchers for reimbursement entry and electronic filing.

　　Industry experts believe that the use of information technology such as the Internet and mobile intelligence to promote the use of financial electronic bills will help standardize the charging behavior of administrative institutions and build a financial bill social service system that is convenient for the people and the people.

　　Have a significant industry impact

　　The digitization of fiscal bills has become a general trend, but there are still problems in how to regulate their use and make them fully accepted. Among them are legal effects, authenticity checks, data standards, and archive management.

For example, in the early stage of the promotion of electronic bills, there was a problem that still needed to be printed out when filing.

　　The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Finance said that with the continuous advancement of reforms, the problem of unclear legal status of fiscal electronic bills has gradually become prominent.

Therefore, through the top-level design and unified planning of the management of financial electronic bills, it is beneficial to promote the smooth circulation, safe transmission, standardized use and convenient inquiry of financial electronic bills.

　　The reform of financial electronic bills management started three years ago.

In June 2017, the Ministry of Finance released the "Pilot Plan for Steadily Promoting the Reform of Fiscal Electronic Bills Management", which proposed that the entire process of financial electronic bill issuance, management, transmission, inquiry, storage, reimbursement entry and social applications should be paperless. Electronic control.

That is, digital information is used to replace paper documents, and electronic signatures are used to replace manual signatures.

　　In November 2018, the Ministry of Finance issued the "Notice on Comprehensively Launching the Reform of Fiscal Electronic Bills Management," requiring that the reform of fiscal electronic bills management be extended to all units and all types of fiscal bills in the region.

The pilot unit of fiscal electronic bills should extend the reform of fiscal electronic bill management to all types of fiscal bills.

　　Professor Shi Zhengwen, director of the Finance and Taxation Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, believes that compared with traditional invoices, electronic invoices have obvious advantages: First, it saves the cost of merchants. On the one hand, the cost of making and issuing invoices is the cost of invoices on the other. This is very important for e-commerce companies; second, fake invoices may disappear, and the long-term problems that have plagued accounting will be cured; third, the threshold for issuing invoices has been lowered, and invoices will no longer be issued It is a difficult problem, and tax control by invoice will be better implemented.

There is no need to post invoices for reimbursement, which will reduce the huge workload. The reimbursement person will be relaxed, and the financial staff will also be relaxed.

The emergence of electronic invoices has made the reading, identification and verification of information very convenient and fast.

The information of an invoice will be seamlessly connected with financial software, greatly reducing the previous manual review. The review of documents is more electronic, and the electronic review is getting closer and closer to artificial intelligence.

It can be seen that the reform of fiscal electronic bill management will have a huge impact on my country's accounting industry.

The public enjoys the reform dividend

　　It is understood that, in order to make the management of financial electronic bills legally based, the revised "Measures" have carried out detailed specifications for the entire process of electronic bills management.

　　For example, clarify the characteristics of electronic bills and data standards, and require financial departments at all levels to generate, transmit, store, and inspect fiscal electronic bills in accordance with unified fiscal electronic bill data standards, and provide authenticity verification of fiscal electronic bills through relevant bill public service platforms service.

　　At the same time, the requirements for the issuance and transmission of electronic bills shall be regulated. Financial bill users shall ensure that electronic bills and their metadata are intact, have reliable sources and have not been illegally altered since they were formed, and that changes in the form during the transmission process shall not affect the content of financial electronic bills. True and complete.

　　It is particularly worthy of attention to clarify the filing management of electronic bills, requiring financial bill users and payment units to receive and read financial electronic bills accurately, completely, and effectively, and file them into accounts in accordance with relevant management requirements such as accounting informatization and accounting files.

　　The text of Shi introduced that the “Plan on Promoting the Electronic Reform of Fiscal Bills” announced by the Ministry of Finance earlier proposed that relying on computer and network technology, the application, printing, registration, warehousing, issuance, and outgoing of fiscal documents should be used. Use, transfer to the treasury, custody, write-off, verification, destruction, etc. are subject to full supervision.

The management scope of the system should cover all financial bills such as government non-tax revenue bills, fund transaction settlement bills, donation bills, medical fee bills, association dues bills, etc., with functions such as electronic invoicing, automatic verification, fund supervision, and statistical analysis.

At the same time, a unified financial bill management information database and information exchange management platform are established to realize the anti-counterfeiting of financial bill electronic information, realize the interconnection with revenue collection, bank, and treasury systems, and meet the government's non-tax revenue collection and management and fiscal bill management needs.

　　The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Finance said that the Ministry of Finance will do a good job in unifying the national fiscal bills in the next step.

Urge local financial departments to implement nationally unified fiscal bill styles, coding rules, and fiscal electronic bill data standards in accordance with the revised "Measures" as soon as possible; require provincial-level financial departments to fully integrate fiscal electronic bills into the national unified fiscal electronic as soon as possible The public bill service platform realizes nationwide networking, enabling one entry for financial electronic bills to check the authenticity and query status.

At the same time, we must continue to deepen the reform of fiscal electronic bills.

Urge some regions with lagging reforms to speed up reforms.

Areas where the reform is progressing rapidly are required to actively carry out the pilot work of financial electronic bill entry reimbursement and application, and realize the electronic management of the entire process of financial electronic bill issuance, circulation, transmission, reimbursement, entry and filing as soon as possible.

　　"The nation implements a unified bill management system. According to this system, financial electronic bills can be inspected and reimbursed in different places. The reform of financial electronic bills must be made to facilitate the public and allow the public to fully enjoy the reform dividend." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Finance Say.