Belgium is a global frontrunner in electronic invoicing, with the adoption of the B2B mandate being a major success. Every e-invoice effortlessly passes a series of automated technical checks. But is the charged VAT actually correct in substance? In our brand-new whitepaper, "The Missing Tax Quality Layer," Banqup experts Jan Druppel and Danny Vermeiren sound the alarm. The whitepaper is available online starting today.

Read or download the full whitepaper "The Missing Tax Quality Layer" here

The Blind Spot of E-Invoicing

Since the B2B mandate took effect on January 1, electronic invoicing has become the norm in Belgium. By mid-2026, we expect around 30 million documents per month to flow through the Peppol network. En route, every invoice is checked multiple times for structure, mandatory fields, and mathematical accuracy. Every check proves that the invoice is technically sound, but not a single check proves that it actually complies with tax law.

Key insights from our whitepaper:

• Incorrect VAT passes undetected: An incorrect VAT application (such as charging 21% on an intra-Community supply to France instead of 0%) goes completely unnoticed by the current system. The invoice is technically flawless, but fiscally wrong.

• ViDA accelerates the spread of errors: Tax authorities are increasingly watching in real time. By July 2030, under the European ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) package, every intra-EU B2B invoice must be reported in near-real time. Without substantive validation, this is not compliance—it is simply the faster distribution of errors.

• The solution lies in the "semantic layer": The underlying cause is that invoices do not specify in a machine-readable format what exact product or service is being sold. We call on European legislators and standardization bodies to standardize product classification on invoices. Only then can automated systems verify whether the applied VAT rate matches the nature of the supply.

As an e-invoicing service provider, Banqup Group actively helps build solutions for these challenges. Detection is the duty of tax authorities, but prevention at the source lies with the market.