ISSUING a tax invoice can be a tricky business, especially when errors are made.

Issuing the same invoice more than once, even to correct errors, is deemed illegal.

But at times errors are made and do need to be corrected, which has led to Treasury amending section 20 of the Value Added Tax Act 89 of 1991, which sets out the requirements for issuing tax invoices.

The draft Administration Laws Amendment Bill 2018 proposes the inclusion of a new section 20(1B) dealing with errors to tax invoices.

Particulars of issuing a tax invoice include mentioning the word ‘tax invoice’, mentioning the name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier, an individual serialised number, the date of issue and the quantity or volume of goods supplied.

If an original invoice is lost, a copy can be issued but must be clearly marked as such.

The proposed section 20(1B) states that, where a tax invoice contains an error in the particulars, the supplier must correct that tax invoice with the correct particulars within 21 days from the date of the request to correct it.

Having made that correction, the time of supply for that tax invoice as contemplated in section 9 of the Act remains unaltered.

In other words, the date on the corrected invoice will not determine the time of supply and the original time of supply remains.