Fiscal law about cash registers is introduced in every country in order to control grey economy so all transactions are mandatory to be reported properly to Authorities. Idea about introducing the fiscal law about cash registers came from the need to avoid retailer's frauds. According to fiscal law, appropriate fiscal receipt has to be printed and given to the customer.
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Fiscalization
Fiscalization is a term which together with VAT introduction was introduced in order to fight against grey economy. First country which introduced fiscal law about the use of specific fiscal devices was Italy, and second one was Greece. Italy introduced this fiscal law in 1983.
Types of fiscal law about cash register
Two types of fiscal law about cash registers are present in the countries around the world: hardware and software fiscal law. Hardware fiscalization could include several components:
- fiscal cash registers
- fiscal printers
- fiscal components which provides certain fiscal data to POS (Point of Sale) application
In all this cases the most important is that every receipt has to be issued according to proper fiscal procedure so Tax Authorities could do inspection at any time. Depending on fiscal regulations in country communication with Tax Authority can be established in real-time or that communication involves keeping the fiscal reports for specific needs.
Software fiscalization could include issuing fiscal receipts without the use of specific fiscal components. This type of fiscalization is more modern and contemporary and it is based on online communication with the server of Tax Authority. Communication with the Tax Authority can be in real time (before receipt is printed) or at the end of the day (after receipt is printed). This type of communication allows Tax Authority not only to follow if each fiscal receipt is issued, but also to control turnover, working time of sales place and it's employees.
Fiscal law in Austria
Austrian parliament approved new fiscalization model which came into force 1 January 2016. This was the first part of fiscalization, which includes creation of Fiscal Journal (FJ) which have to be saved at each POS, central database or in Cloud. The second part of the new fiscal law is the digital signature of every cash receipt, which will be implemented on 1 April 2017. Austrian fiscal regulation is based on two concepts. First concept relates to usage of digital signature device for every issued receipt and second to „closed system“ in which independent audit of Company processes and organization is needed. „Closed system“ refers to the company that has more than 30 cash registers. But there is one difference between these two concepts - usage of digital signature device and registration of each POS at Fiscal Authority what is not mandatory when we talk about „closed system“. Advantages of “closed system” are: signature device, digital certificate and POS registration at authority are not needed. With the new regulations fiscal law in Austria requires that every POS has unique number, that has to create and maintain the fiscal totals (created by adding every cash turnover to previews one encoded with AES 256 algorithm). Based on tax information from transaction POS has to create Barcode, QR Code or OCR code on the receipt. When it is about the end of every year, the special fiscal receipt has to be printed and saved for authority and every Retailer has to keep it for seven years.
Fiscal law in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Fiscal law which was implemented at the end of 2010 in Bosnia and Herzegovina implies recording every single turnover over fiscal devices. Communication with Tax Administration is done via GPRS.
Fiscal law in Croatia
New fiscal law in Croatia, as concept of controlling business and their turnover, has become reality since 1 January 2013. Although Italy was the first country which introduced law for the use of specific fiscal devices (what happened in 1983), Republic of Croatia is one of the first countries in the world with type of fiscalization which includes that fiscal relevant transactions have to be sent to the fiscal authority through Internet for authorization. Implementation of the new type of fiscalization in Republic of Croatia was very fast and proof to that is the fact that technician specification was done in October 2012 and new law started only three months later. Software manufacturers were not very optimistic about this new fiscalization concept, especially because short period of time for implementation. But new fiscal law saw daylight that 1 January 2013. According to the law: 1. each receipt has to be printed 2. each receipt has to be sent to Tax Authority 3. communication is done via Internet connection 4. Tax Authority server returns data such as: amounts, income taxes, unique cashier number (OIB), payments information.
Fiscal law in Montenegro
Every fiscal device must have record number which is a unique number that is entered in the fiscal memory of the fiscal cash register, and serves to identify the tax cash registers. The fiscal account in particular contains the following information: 1. the name of the taxpayer and the name and address of sale; 2. users PIB; 3. the amount of tax at the tax rates; 4. total amount of taxes; 5. day, month, year, hour and minute of issuing fiscal receipt. Fiscal receipt is printed in two copies, one which is issued to the buyer, and the other remains on the control bar. Every sales object is obliged to print daily report at the end of the day. A taxpayer who works 24 hours per day is required to print a daily report once during 24 hours. The taxpayer is obliged to keep printed daily reports in chronological order in the book of daily reports. The book of daily reports shall be kept separately for each cash register.
Fiscal law in Serbia
Fiscal law in Serbia is similar to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Serbia was the first country which introduced GPRS in fiscal law. All relevant data are sent to Serbian Tax Authority via GPRS.Fiscal law in Slovenia
Fiscalization in Slovenia is similar to Croatia. At the beginning of 2016 in Slovenia was introduced new law which includes that every transaction has to be sent to fiscal authorities for authorization through Internet. The core of Slovenian fiscal law is online authorization of every fiscal relevant transaction created at POS system. That means that business subjects which are obliged to operate according to the new fiscal law are not required to change hardware equipment or to use some special fiscal devices because, as it is said, fiscalization is based on online authorization.