Source: Official Portal of the State of Bahia, 04/12/2008

Implemented with the objective of replacing the issuance of paper invoices only with digital invoices, the Electronic Invoice System (NF-e) started its second phase of massification in December. As of that month, taxpayers in the auto, cement, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, medicines, meat, steel and pig iron products segments, in addition to agents who sell electricity to final consumers, began mandatory issuance of NF-e .
In Bahia, 815 contributors to the Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS) belong to these segments. To start issuing the Electronic Invoice, the businessmen registered on the website www.sefaz.ba.gov.br, Electronic Inspectorate Channel, address that also contains all the necessary information about the process.

“This is, without a doubt, another important step to massify the issuance of the NF-e. Currently, over 52 million banknotes have been authorized throughout Brazil for a movement greater than R $ 1 trillion ”, explains the superintendent of Tax Administration of the Secretariat of Finance, Cláudio Meirelles. The State of Bahia is the national responsible for the technical and executive coordination of the Electronic Invoice System and one of the first to process NF-es in the country.

The mandatory issuance of the Electronic Invoice began in April 2008, with contributors from the cigarette and fuel segment (cigarette distributors, alcohol plants, oil refineries, transporters and retail resellers). Prior to this period, emissions of NF-es were spontaneous. In Bahia there are 533 taxpayers accredited to issue Electronic Invoices.

The NF-e System aims to implement a national model of electronic tax document that will replace the current system of issuing the tax document on paper, with legal validity guaranteed by the sender's digital signature, simplifying the taxpayer's ancillary obligations and allowing, at the same time, the real-time monitoring of commercial operations by the tax authorities. NF-e is replacing paper invoices for models 1 and 1A.

New companies in April and September 2009

Two new deadlines are already foreseen for the entry of companies in the NF-e System. In April 2009, car importers, auto parts and tires manufacturers, aluminum, cans, PET bottles and paints, among others, will start issuing.

In September of next year, some of the taxpayers obliged to issue NF-es are manufacturers of paper products, electronic components, computers, communication equipment, wholesalers and dairy manufacturers; manufacturers of plastic material, steel tubes, PVC tubes, air conditioners, tractors and jewelry items; bread makers and wholesalers and new vehicle dealers.

“With the entry of these two new groups of companies in the NF-e System in 2009, the project will include taxpayers who account for approximately 80% of state revenue, which will allow us to have even greater control over the billing process of large companies. companies ”, explains the coordinator of the Tax Automation Management, Dimas Fonseca.

The system brings a series of benefits to taxpayers, such as the elimination of typing invoices in the receipt of goods and consequent bookkeeping errors, in addition to the logistics planning that is made possible by the early receipt of information contained in the NF-e. For the issuer of the Nota Fiscal, the system allows the reduction of costs for the acquisition of forms, printing and storage of tax documents.

As explained by the coordinator of the National Meeting of State Tax Administrators and Coordinators and Sefaz-Ba's tax auditor, Eudaldo Almeida, there are many advantages obtained with its use, among which are the fight against tax evasion, greater control over tax collection, the improvement of the competitive environment, the reduction of paper consumption and the contribution to the formation of a database that will make the tax reform proposal under discussion feasible ”.