[Muromec]

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.

[itake]

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).

[Muromec]

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.