THE DIGITALIZATION OF THE TAX ADMINISTRATION AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SAF-T STANDARD

If in the past digitization was only an option, nowadays it has become a necessity due to the speed of evolution and date changes that have taken place in this field. A new challenge in the financial services sector can be seen by implementing in Romania the international standard for the electronic exchange of accounting data between companies /organizations and tax authorities, SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Tax). The need to adopt this standard appears in a globalized environment with different accounting systems, standardization being essential for the identification of tax fraud. SAF-T was introduced by the OECD, which is seen as automatically generating files in a common, readable and easily exportable format, regardless of the software used according to a defined set of accounting records. SAF-T has already been implemented by several European tax authorities and will be implemented in our country in July 2021 according to the press release of 31.12.2020 sent by ANAF. The objective of the paper is to present the SAF_T standard, the evolution of its implementation in the Member States, the stages of SAF-T implementation in Romania as well as the advantages and implications of its adoption and the necessary conditions to be met.