The purpose of this is to reduce manual work. In Finland, we've had mandatory electronic invoicing in all B2B transactions since 2020 (based on domestic standard called Finvoice which is very similar to PEPPOL.) It is really great. My company is 100% paper-free. When I get an invoice, it pops up to my accountants system and I just go and accept it with one click in their web UI. After that the invoice will be paid from my bank account on the due date and entered into the books automatically.

Gone are the error-prone days of manually copying account numbers, invoice reference codes and amounts from PDFs and paper mail, and scanning those invoices for book keeping.

The standards for e-invoicing are open but it's true that you need to hire a trusted intermediary to process your messages. Anyone can become a processor so it's not a closed system but I bet there's some auditting required before you get a license - which makes sense.

Overall changes like these initially mean some expenses to businesses but once the system is up and working as intended it reduces lots of mandatory pencil pushing type work, bringing savings throughout the economy to all companies.

You're right that the main basis is the automation part. That being said they could have gone with a system that does not require a yearly 2K fee to just be a part of the peppol group.

That's my only negative point about this whole system is that money is being pulled away from freelancers and small SME's for every invoice they send.

The big guys just setup an access point and pay the yearly fee as it is nothing compared to their revenue.

Most companies don't need to become processors, only those who specialise in providing financial services to others.

Unless you have a very small company you already probably have an accountant or bookkeeper. In most situations, the e-invoicing is provided by your accountant as part of their comprehensive financial management solution. I pay about 120€/mo. for a solution that includes bookkeeping, electronic and traditional invoicing, electronic and traditional expenses management, salary/payroll and all tax declarations for my 1-person company. The effort saved/cost ratio is bonkers, and in the grand scheme of things the monthly fee is marginal.

There might be indeed a usecase for SMEs that don't want to buy a comprehensive financial management solution and instead want to send their e-invoices manually. It's probably a pretty niche usecase and someone could probably provide a "proxy" processor for something like 100€/year. It's still a very marginal cost for almost any imaginable going concern. And to receive any money you anyway need a bank account, which is not free for companies.

> That's my only negative point about this whole system is that money is being pulled away from freelancers and small SME's for every invoice they send.

I don't pay anything to send or receive e-invoices on top of my monthly plan. But I do pay a very small fee to my bank for each transaction they process.

> So what you're saying is that a certain group of companies ("third parties") successfully lobbied your government(s) to mandate an artificial monopoly on a practical necessity for ostensibly honorable and convenient reasons, and everyone will pay up for this divine virtue.

I'm sure that direct (as in having your own AS number, IP blocks and peering arrangements) access to the internet is even more expensive, not to mention things like your own electricity or your own cellphone network.

Somehow, people aren't complaining that your average bootstrapped SaaS can't become its own ISP.

As long as any reasonably-sized company can become a provider, and as long as the government isn't demanding something outrageous, like the provider having to pay an 'interchange fee' for every invoice send through the network, economies of scale will come in and drive costs down.

>economies of scale will come in and drive costs down.

Will it, though? From the sound of it this is a singular system with no competitors and required for any commercial activity, so there's no downward pressure there. As for the intermediaries, there will probably be competition between them but history doesn't bode well (see: Quickbooks, et al.).

Peppol is a not-for-profit entity, but there are already 400+ authorized server providers.

Any provider can be paying 2k per year to operate, but can service millions of invoicing entities so the cost per-invoice can be effectively very low.

Huge difference between EU and US: In the EU, the seller always pays VAT to the government. In case of B2B, the buyer can claim it back from the government. As proof, store the invoice and data about the payment (and that the goods/service have been received). Proof is rarely verififed. Huge potential for tax fraud.

With all invoices going through government computers, only VAT that has actually been paid can be claimed back.

The easier solution would of course be to get rid of VAT, and increase income tax instead. But then people earning barely enough will suddenly notice how much the are paying. VAT nicely hides that fact.

The nice thing about VAT is that everyone has to pay it, whether they pay income tax or not. Lots of people get their money income tax free (undeclared jobs, income from abroad, inheritance, etc). With VAT everyone has to pay.

>I'm sorry if this comes off as dismissive, but as an American who deals in this sort of officework as part of $dayjob you guys need to vote in better politicians.

Wanna tell me how you file taxes?

My personal taxes? I just fill out the federal and state forms and mail them in, though I'm thinking of hiring a CPA to do it for me starting this year since some things might get more complicated than I care for. We'll see, I guess.

The company? A CPA does it as far as I know, but filing everything ourselves is certainly an option.

Are these forms pre-filled where just sending it in without any revisions is an option if you're a basic salaried employee without any special deductibles?