On the upside, PEPPOL guarantees delivery if you successfully submit a message. So the recipient can't claim they didn't get the invoice if you managed to deliver.
That's not happening. Because they too will need to pay for access to the PEPPOL network. And it seems like there might be some KYC requirements in addition to the money and the audits.
Transactional costs exist. Paper costs money, phone calls cost money, bank accounts cost money too and exchange rates have markup in them. Then the actual taxes exist. This is how everything works. Than there is electronic signature thingy which may or may not cost money.
It’s also not a tax, as there is no entrenched monopoly that collects is. If anything, something like AWS or for my sensibilities azure is more outrageous.
My understanding is PEPPOL (charging 1,800 euro/yr!) is the only provider of this service.
Can Freelancers choose to another service (like email) instead of PEPPOL? According to the post, this service is the monopoly service provider per-law.
In the USA, a client can send me money for free via ACH or as a check (which are mostly free depending on your bank and account level).
I imagine being part of SWIFT alliance or any other payment network costs some serious moneys, yet a current account costs a few euros a months. Same things with being a CA -- being included in the list of root certs requires an audit and obviously costs money, yet you can have free https certs from letsencrypt.
Nobody stops you from running something similar to letsencrypt but for this PEPPOL thingy if you don't want to pay for invoicing software as service.
I for once, spent 10 years of my life maintaining an opensource library so people can cryptographically sign tax documents for Ukrainian government, including e-receipts on point of sale terminals.
I pay approx €80 a month for a complete accounting/payment system, including Peppol-access, payrolls, expenses etc etc .
I actually think Peppol-invoices are free. I just choose that instead of e-mail (assuming my customer is an official company).
It is automatically transferring the invoice-data to my bank which is expensive (and that too I can fix by changing bank...)
So, all in all, Peppol is a good thing. Making it mandatory is perhaps a bit over the top, but hey.