Sweden: ViDA-related developments from a Swedish perspective

The legislative steps concerning e-invoices, real-time transactional reporting and the expansion of the OSS/IOSS scheme and platform economy as a result of implementing the ViDA initiative, have slowly been introduced in Sweden. At the moment, there is a sparse amount of information on how the ViDA initiative will be implemented in Swedish legislation.  

A factual memorandum has however been published that summarizes the EU Commission's proposal on the ViDA regulation and the Swedish government's stance on the new initiative. The government welcomes efforts aimed at preventing value-added tax fraud as administrative cooperation and information exchange are crucial in this context. However, the government highlights the importance of simple and clear rules and that ViDA does not entail significant costs and administrative burdens for businesses.  

The government supports the measures to promote cross-border trade and the ability for businesses to compete on equal terms. This position is also reflected in Sweden's standpoint in discussions with Ecofin. The government remains committed to anti-fraud measures and fostering cross-border trade without unreasonable administrative efforts.

While e-invoicing already is a norm in many Swedish businesses, Sweden has not yet made great efforts to start the implementation of real-time transactional reporting and the expansion of the OSS/IOSS scheme and platform economy. As the implementations of the ViDA reforms and proposals have been recently postponed further, we do not expect the legislative process in Sweden to accelerate, however, we welcome efforts in implementing the ViDA initiative in Swedish legislation.