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VAT invoicing

Invoicing obligation, exceptions, types of invoices and contents

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Duty to preserve the invoices

Employers and professionals must issue and deliver invoices and keep invoices and supporting documents relating to their tax obligations during the limitation period 4 years (article 29,2 (e) of Act 58/2003, of 17 December, General Tax and 165.Uno of Act 37/1992).

The following documents must also be kept in their original content, in order and during the period established by the General Tax Law:

  • Invoices received.
  • Physical copies or electronic data pertaining to issued invoices.
  • Accounting records for transactions subject to the reversal taxpayer system when the supplier is not established in the European Community.
  • The justificatory receipts of the compensatory refund in the Special System for Agriculture, Stock Breeding and Fishing, both the original by the issuer, and the copy by the holder of the exploitation.

Similarly, this duty binds business owners or professionals enrolled in any of the special Value Added Tax systems, as well as those not classed as business owners or professionals but who are required to pay Value Added Tax, although in the latter case it shall only encompass invoices recieved and copies of or electronic data on issued invoices.

The various documents, in paper or electronic format, shall be stored by any means enabling the party bound by the duty to guarantee the authenticity of their origin, the integrity of their content and their legibility, as well as immediate access to them by the Tax Agency except for duly justified reasons. This duty may be discharged through use of electronic means.

In order for storage by electronic means in a third country with which there is no legal instrument agreeing mutual assistance to be considered valid, the Tax Agency must have been informed to this effect in advance.

When invoices received or issued refer to acquisitions for which VAT payments have been paid, the deduction of which is subject to a period of regularisation must be maintained during the corresponding adjustment period and the following four years.

The employers or professionals who carry out operations involving gold as investment will have to keep the copies of the invoices corresponding to these operations for a period of five years.