Article 218 of the VAT Directive provides for an obligation for Member States to accept all documents or messages both in paper or electronic form as invoices. Germany would therefore like to obtain a derogation from the above-mentioned Article of the VAT Directive so that only documents in electronic form can be considered as invoices by the German tax administration.Article 232 of the VAT Directive requires that the use of an electronic invoice shall be subject to acceptance by the recipient. Therefore, the introduction of an electronic invoicing obligation in Germany requires a derogation from this Article so that the issuer no longer has to obtain the consent of the recipient to send an invoice in a paperless format.
Source: eur-lex.europa.eu
