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VAT practical manual 2021.

Duty to bill

Entrepreneurs and professionals are obliged to issue an invoice and a copy of it for the deliveries of goods and services they carry out in the development of their activity and to keep a copy of it. They must also issue invoices in cases of advance payments, except for exempt intra-community deliveries of goods.

Likewise, other people and entities that do not have the status of businessmen or professionals are obliged to issue and keep invoices or other proof of the operations they carry out.

1. Cases of mandatory invoice issuance

Always and in any case, business owners and professionals are obliged to issue an invoice in the following cases:

  • When the recipient is a businessman or professional acting as such.

  • When the recipient of the operation requires it for the exercise of any right of a tax nature.

  • Exports of goods exempt from VAT (except those carried out in duty-free stores).

  • Intra-community deliveries of goods exempt from VAT.

  • When the recipient is a public administration or a legal entity that does not act as a businessman or professional.

  • Deliveries of goods subject to installation or assembly before being made available.

  • Distance sales when they are understood to be carried out in the territory of application of the tax.

2. Exceptions to the duty to bill

There is no obligation to issue an invoice, unless it is one of those indicated as mandatory in the previous section, in the following operations:

  • Operations exempt from VAT by virtue of the provisions of article 20 of the VAT Law. However, the issuance of an invoice will be mandatory in operations exempt from article 20.Uno.2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 20, 22, 24, 25 and 28 of the VAT Law.

  • Those carried out by taxable persons in the development of activities to which the special regime of the equivalence surcharge applies. However, an invoice must be issued in all cases for deliveries of properties subject to and not exempt from the Tax.

  • Those carried out by entrepreneurs or professionals in the development of activities for which they are covered by the simplified regime of VAT , unless the determination of the quotas is made based on the volume of income. Nonetheless, an invoice should always be issued for transfers of fixed assets.

  • Those operations that, with reference to business or professional sectors or specific companies, are authorized by the Tax Management Department of the State Tax Administration Agency, in order to avoid disturbances in the development of the economic activities of businessmen or professionals.

There is also no obligation to issue an invoice when it comes to the provision of services defined in article 20.One 16 and 18, sections a) an) of the VAT Law , unless:

  • They are understood to have been carried out in the TAI or in another Member State and are subject to and not exempt from it.

  • They are understood to be carried out in the TAI, the Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla, they are subject to and exempt from it and they are carried out by businessmen or professionals other than insurance entities, management companies of collective investment institutions, pension fund management entities, securitization funds. and its management companies, credit institutions, through the headquarters of their economic activity or permanent establishment located in the aforementioned territory.

  • The Tax Management Department of the State Tax Administration Agency exempts other businessmen or professionals from the obligation to issue an invoice, upon request of the interested parties, when justified by the commercial or administrative practices of the sector of activity in question or by the technical conditions for the issuance of these invoices.

There is no obligation to issue a "self-invoice" in the case of intra-community acquisitions nor in operations in which the taxable person is reversed. However, the original invoice or accounting receipt, issued by the person making the delivery that gives rise to the intra-community acquisition or the provision of services or the delivery of goods that gives rise to the reversal of the taxable person, will be considered as a supporting document for the deduction. , provided that said acquisition of goods or services is included in the corresponding self-assessment.

3. Possibility of issuing monthly billing documents. Summary invoices

Operations carried out on different dates for the same recipient may be included in a single invoice as long as they were carried out within the same calendar month.

The operations will be deemed to have been carried out on the date on which the tax accrual occurred.