New Brazil Nota Fiscal Inbound Process Changes 2013

There have been a lot of changes in 2012 concerning Brazil's Nota Fiscal legislation. First, we saw the mandate for the CT-e (transportation invoices), then we saw the CCe (correction notice), and now we see adjustments with the release of the Manifestação do Destinatário, which focuses on Inbound Events.

There are two main reasons why the reception process is expanding:

•Ghost Transactions: Unscrupulous suppliers creating “ghost” transactions at the end of month using a CNPJ number of existing customers without their awareness.  Transactions are then canceled later without consequence to the sending party. 

•Incorrect Paper CC:    Corrupted data created when customers use paper based “correction notices” (CC) to adjust NFe’s created incorrectly in the first place.  Such adjustments are often performed incorrectly, changing values that are not allowed without cancelling and re-issuing a new NFE. 

What is the Recipient Acknowledgement process?

Events allow a NF-e recipient to acknowledge their commercial participation in a business transaction by confirming the information provided in an Issuer’s tax document. This process has four events (translated from original Portuguese):

• Emission Acknowledgement
• Operation Confirmation
• Operation Registration Unfulfilled
• Operation Declined or Ignored

The Emission Acknowledgement event registers the NF-e recipient’s request to obtain the XML file. After registering this event, the recipient is allowed to download the XML. The Emission Acknowledgement event does not represent the recipient acknowledgement of the transaction; it only gives conditions for the recipient to retrieve the XML file. The event registers that the invoice recipient is aware that the document was issued, but has not yet expressed a conclusive acknowledgement that the transaction is legal and correct.

All the transactions that have an Emission Acknowledgement event should also have an additional event (one of the 3 Operations listed above) to record the conclusive acknowledgement of the operation by the recipient.

How does the "Confirmed Operation" event work?

The event will be recorded after the business transaction completes, which means that the transaction occurred as reported on the issued NF-e. If the invoice is issued for the transportation of goods, the date of the confirmation must occur after the physical entry of the goods in the recipient’s establishment. It is important to note that after the recipient confirms the operation, the Issuer can no longer cancel the NF-e.  So the Emission Acknowledgement request, alone, does not inhibit suppliers from canceling the NF-e. 

How does the "Operation Registration Unfulfilled" event work?

This event will be registered by the recipient when, for any reason, the operation legally agreed between the parties did not take place (goods returned to Issuer or damaged during transportation, etc.).

How does the "Operation Declined or Ignored" event work?

This event enables the recipient to express any misuse of their State Registration by an NF-e Issuer to cover up fraudulent operations of shipping goods to different recipients. This event protects the recipient from tax liabilities involving the misuse of their State Registration/CNPJ.

Currently, the law states that each NFe must be acknowledged within 180 days. However, your organization can achieve lots of value from these events even before the mandates take hold. Recipient’s of goods will receive the following benefits by implementing the process:

• To know which NF-e’s were issued across the country using the company as a recipient
• To prevent misuse of your State Registration by NF-e Issuers by preventing “Ghost Transactions” where Issuers use your CNPJ to cover up fraudulent operations when shipping goods to a different recipient than is listed on the tax document
• To obtain the NF-e XML that has not been forwarded by its Issuer
• For legal certainty in a tax credit, since an invoice confirmed cannot be canceled by the Issuer
• To acknowledge with their suppliers that the merchandise was received and formally establish that the commercial invoice for the trade was legal, without the need of the signature printed on the stub of the DANFE.

Ensure you understand how this process affects your organization. As their are implications for both suppliers and more importantly buyers.