Keywords: Electronic invoicing, einvoicing, e-invoiving, Costa Rica, tax, tax evasion, digital signature

Costa Rica mandates electronic invoicing for professionals

Sarah Feurey | News | 23 August 2012

• Print
•        

The Costa Rican government has mandated electronic invoicing for doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, dentists, and other professional people. In order to reduce tax evasion, these professions will be obliged to issue e-invoices later this year.

A draft resolution states that all professionals will be required to produce proof of income in electronic form and must also provide digital signatures. The purpose behind it is to have a tool to verify the income of professionals in order to better determine income tax and to guarantee the payment of sales tax.

However, there is concern that the implementation may be too big an undertaking for the Cost Rican government and data may not be properly secured.

Electronic invoicing has been used in Costa Rica since February 2009 when the Directorate General of Taxation issued a resolution that enabled and set out the rules for its use, but its use has not been legally required before now.