The head of the Federal Tax Service called data exchange the next stage of electronic document management

Russia should strive not so much for the transition from paper to electronic document management (EDI), as for the exchange of data, said the head of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) Daniil Egorov, speaking at the Tax Ecosystem: People and Technologies forum. According to him, now economic agents are rather trying to imitate the traditional “paper life” in electronic format.

“Today we are at a certain stage [цифровизации процессов]. My feeling of this stage is determined by the term itself – electronic document management. But do we really have to follow the path of copying documents into electronic form in the form we see them on paper? The essence of the process is not the exchange of documents, but of data,” said Yegorov.

He stressed that in any case, the transition to electronic interaction should be approached “carefully”. Engaged in electronic document management is not a typical function for the tax service, Egorov recalled. But at the same time, if the Federal Tax Service does not become an integrator of business proposals and bureaucratic practices in this matter, it will be more difficult to move the topic onto the agenda of the government and the legislator, so the transition will be delayed.

At the same time, the tax benefit of the state should not be put at the forefront – it is this emphasis that has greatly complicated the transition to electronic document management in other states, Egorov believes. “We must not allow the control function to sweep away all other meanings in its path. Our task is to refrain from immediately enjoying the benefits that we see for ourselves as a controlling body, ”the head of the Federal Tax Service emphasized.

In his opinion, it is necessary to focus primarily on the position of business – then the result will be a serious reduction in costs for the country as a whole. According to the RANEPA, the cost of paper document management is about 3.5 trillion rubles. in year. The gradual development of EDI in Russia by the end of 2024 could lead to an increase in GDP by 4-5% on a cumulative basis (in % of GDP in 2019), university experts calculated. The RANEPA report was published in 2020.

The Ministry of Finance considers it a preference to preserve the opportunity for businesses not to switch to electronic document management, but to use paper reporting forms, said Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov, who also spoke at the forum.

“The main preference is that the Federal Tax Service does not actively impose digital document management, in that it still leaves variability in many cases for business: the preservation of both paper and digital document management,” he stressed. Big business, in his opinion, is already interested in switching to EDI: it is more convenient for large companies to interact with the Federal Tax Service in electronic form.

The concept for the development of electronic document management in economic activity was approved in 2020. According to the document, by the end of 2024, 95% of invoices (except those classified as state secrets) and 70% of transport and consignment notes must be transferred to electronic form. The phased implementation of the concept will also allow annually starting from 2022 to increase the number of electronic documents by at least 20%.