Major changes in Central Statistical Office-Intrastat reporting

Tax & Legal Alert | Issue 606 | 7 December 2018

Companies should prepare for major changes in CSO-Intrastat reporting obligations, effective from 2019.

Below we provide a summary of the most important changes affecting providers of statistical information, and present PwC’s automated solution.

Changes include a new submission procedure: starting with declarations for January 2019, Intrastat declarations will have to be submitted through the KSH-ELEKTRA system, rather than the Intrastat E-star system. This means that use of the KSH-ELEKTRA system will be mandatory from 15 February 2019. The Intrastat E-star system will be discontinued at the end of January 2019, meaning that corrections concerning 2018 can only be submitted through that system until the end of January 2019.

The scope of mandatory data elements will also change. Certain data elements will no longer be included as mandatory in the declarations, while new data elements will have to be reported. In each declaration, the data reported must be aggregated at data-element level if all parameters (commodity code, transaction code, etc.) are the same.

The most significant change will be that the data files to be uploaded into the new system will have a different format and structure. Instead of the current CSV and XLS (Excel) files, only XML files or structurally modified CSV files can be uploaded into the KSH-ELEKTRA system, meaning that it will no longer be possible to upload XLS files. That change will significantly impact the files that have been generated to date, because switching to the new file format will require IT development.

How PwC can help you

In view of the changes coming into force in 2019, PwC’s specialists have developed an automated solution that facilitates smooth transition to the new Intrastat reporting process, ensuring that its users experience practically no change or additional burden in connection with transitioning to 2019 reporting requirements. Our solution is able to create the required XML structure from a data file generated in almost any environment or structure (.xls, .csv, .txt, etc.).

PwC Hungary will hold a Hungarian-language WebEx presentation at 3 p.m. on 17 December 2018, where participants will receive detailed information on the changes concerning Intrastat reporting, and on PwC Hungary’s automated solution. Please register at the following link if you wish to participate at PwC’s WebEx presentation.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact László Deák (tel.: +(36) 1 461 9590, e-mail: laszlo.deak@pwc.com), Gábor Farkas (tel.: +(36) 30 527 5919, e-mail.: gabor.farkas@pwc.com) or Adrienn Szalay (tel.: +(36) 30 958 3741, e-mail: adrienn.szalay@pwc.com).