Frankfurt am Main, 2021-12-06

In their coalition agreement the new german government apparently agreed on a
federal reporting system on VAT which will be used for the creation, validation and forwarding of invoices
“ein elektronisches Meldesystem bundesweit einheitlich einführen, das für die Erstellung, Prüfung und Weiterleitung von Rechnungen verwendet wird”.

After Italy introducing mandatory business-to-business e-invoices in 2019 and France set to do so in 2026 (source when this was still planned for 2025) this agreement, together with other documents like a (realtively independent) (german) study, a (german) complaint by the Federal Audit Office, a (german) investigation by the research service of the Bundestag as well as a (german) request by the political liberal party, make it look as if these were preparations to introduce an obligation for e-invoices in Germany as well.

Jochen Stärk
jstaerk@usegroup.de