The Tax Authority wants VAT the moment you get paid
On 9 August 2026 ynet and TheMarker reported that the Israel Tax Authority is advancing a change to how VAT is collected. Instead of the business transferring collected VAT in one batch on the 15th of the month, the money would move to the state the moment payment for the transaction is received. The example used: a refrigerator at ₪10,000 plus 18% VAT, with the ₪1,800 going to the Tax Authority immediately rather than weeks later.
Globes reports the plan under the name "Israel Invoice 2.0" (online VAT) and frames it as the next stage against fictitious invoices, which drain billions of shekels a year from the treasury. The mechanism would close the gap between the transaction date and the tax payment date, built on the existing allocation-number infrastructure. The current system rests on a model first activated on 1 July 1976.
The caveat matters. TheMarker states that the plan requires primary legislation and will not move before a new government is formed. There is no effective date, no new form, no compliance step today. Anyone selling an urgent "prepare for online VAT" package is selling air.
This touches every osek murshe, monthly or bi-monthly filer alike. An osek patur does not charge VAT and sits outside it. The businesses most exposed are the ones running on the float, using the weeks between issuing an invoice and the 15th of the next month as free working capital.
Three things are worth doing now. Stop treating collected VAT as usable cash and move it to a separate account. Take your highest VAT month of the past year and check whether you would have made payroll had that 18% left on the day each customer paid; if not, talk to your bank before the law passes, not after. Confirm that your invoicing software is already connected to the Tax Authority systems for allocation numbers, because that is the layer the reform builds on.
The signal to watch is a draft bill on VAT payment timing. Separately, the same ynet piece cites an unnamed Finance Ministry source pushing to raise the rate above 18%. No decision, but a rate rise plus a timing change would compound.