IRD Enforces New Guideline On Electronic Billing Systems

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has enforced the guideline on Electronic Billing System, writes eKantipur. The system was introduced to reduce the possibility of tax evasion and under-invoicing by keeping track of all the sales and transaction that has taken place.

The new guideline includes a cloud-based computing which stores all the data over the Internet. The guideline has been in effect since December 31 as informed by the Deputy Director General Yagya Prasad Dhungel. The new guideline on electronic billing system supersedes the Computerised Billing System 2015.

A firm offering cloud computing service is required to maintain its server in the country. A service provider which uses a foreign rented server needs to keep the server operator in the country. They also have to use servers based on multi-tenancy architecture that allows separate storage of transaction records.

Similarly the multinational companies that are maintaining the server in a foreign country must maintain a separate log server in Nepal to store transaction.

“The server used by multinational companies should be accessible to the IRD and related tax offices,” states the guideline. Dhungel said.

According to Dhungel, the department has asked firms registered for the computerized billing system to implement the new system within the next three months. More than 600 firms are currently using the computerized billing system. New firms are required to install the system while getting registered with the authorities.

With a total of 1.6 million taxpayers registered to the department, 184,000 are registered for VAT. The department has also been implementing the electronic billing system as a complement to its plan to enforce a full-fledged central billing monitoring system. The pilot project for the system was launched by installing it at Sipradi Trading on November 17. Other than this, two other firms are also using the billing system as per Dhungel.

The department has shortlisted 156 software developer to implement the electronic billing system.