White Paper: The missing tax quality layer of e-invoicing networks

Why e-invoicing networks can now deliver and report any invoice in real time, but still cannot tell you whether the tax on it is right.

• Every layer of validation in today’s e-invoicing networks checks whether an invoice is well-formed: schema, business rules, code lists, arithmetic. No layer checks whether the tax on it is right. A fully compliant invoice carrying the wrong VAT passes every check at every corner of the network, and with real-time reporting it reaches the tax administration before anyone in the business has seen it.
• The paper argues that the reason no machine can check the tax is the missing semantic layer underneath: the nature of what is supplied travels as free text in Europe (BT-153/BT-154), while the optional classification field BT-158 is rarely used and no European classification for tax purposes exists.
• The evidence base is the ecosystem’s own published record, including the complete session material of the Peppol Conference Europe 2026 in Brussels, some 580 slides in which the substantive correctness of tax is addressed nowhere.
• The paper is deliberately vendor-neutral and names no product; it closes with an agenda for standards bodies, tax administrations and the revision of the eInvoicing Directive.

Source Banqup

---

---