German tax law is sometimes like a season of "Game of Thrones": Unusual names, obscure entanglements - and if you don't play the game right, you'll quickly lose out.

If you can already see winter coming because of the technical terms, our "KTfKK" initiative - short for "Klartext für Kanzleikürzel" - will help you.

Today we will explain the abbreviation "GoBD".

We won't leave you in the dark for long, because until you're done with the formulation ... 😉
This abbreviation stands for the "Principles for the proper keeping and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form and for data access."

In short: The GoBD are the rules of the game that you absolutely need to know for your digital accounting!

The financial administration sits on the throne, sets the rules and updates them when necessary: most recently in July due to the new e-invoicing obligation in the B2B sector.

The most important GoBD rules are
❗ Order is the spice of life: you must record all business transactions in a complete and traceable manner!
❗ Delete nothing, lose nothing: As a rule, you must keep all tax-relevant documents for eight years!
❗ No creative reworking: You must be able to present the records unchanged (or with documented changes) and machine-readable to the tax auditor!

New: The tax authorities show mercy
For structured e-invoices (e.g. ZUGFeRD, XRechnung), you do not necessarily have to keep the image version (PDF). The structured data record is sufficient as long as no tax-relevant information is only contained in the PDF. The same applies to self-generated e-invoices.

As you can see, you can only win the game if you always observe the latest rules.

👉 Would you like to make your digital accounting GoBD-compliant? Then get in touch with us. We will be happy to assist you and help you with your tax questions and concerns:
www.wsb-berater.com/kontakt

#GoBD #Law firm abbreviation #Clear text #Digital accounting #Invoicing #Tax advice #WSB