One month after Cash Register Ordinance Registrierkassensicherheitsverordnung (RKSV) commenced into force, some comments appeared to suggest that process at the beginning had more problems as it was probably expected. Start of the project was postponed, instead of starting the January 1 it started on April 1 since most users were not ready on January 1, they were given more time to prepare. First month of implementation resulted lower compliance from taxpayers than expected; there are those who still do not issue receipts, although they were obliged to do it even before the 1st of April. One of the leading software vendors in Austria (BMD) made an independent survey that included 239 taxpayers (from SME to corporates), and reveled that errors and malfunctions related to compliance with technical requirements were found in one-third. Almost 40% percent of the receipts were not correct. Percentage of defects is higher in the gastronomic sector than in the other industries.
Errors that occur are not alarming in the sense that they cannot be quickly corrected. What is worrying is such a large number of failure to comply on a small sample of observed taxpayers. However, failure to comply is not necessarily related to tax evasion but the fact that failures are caused by the omissions made by solution developers.
Jurisdictions often neglect the fact that POS or cash register software should be checked before finding its way to taxpayers as compliant solution in accordance with Regulation or Ordinance. Namely, avoiding certification, or so called accreditation process of vendor’s product enables faster implementation and somehow lowers the cost of compliance, but in the long run it can create a burden for taxpayer who may not be aware that solution fails to meet requirements.
In order to reduce the number of errors and to avoid that some error occurs later in exploitation, it is recommendable to have some kind of accreditation and control mechanism of fiscal devices and fiscal software applications. This solution would surely help RKSV become a success in Austria.
