As an entrepreneur, you must keep business correspondence for six years if it is relevant for tax purposes. This retention obligation applies, among other things, to
📄 Order confirmations,
📦 Delivery bills,
🚚 Bills of lading and
💰 Incoming and outgoing invoices.

The Federal Fiscal Court recently clarified that emails with a tax reference can also be commercial and business letters that must be retained.
And since, according to court opinion, the external form of a document is not important, even WhatsApp messages can fall under the retention obligation.

All correspondence that serves the „preparation, execution or reversal of a commercial transaction and contains „accounting-relevant information“ must be retained.

If you conduct contract negotiations and business transactions via WhatsApp, you should therefore archive your chat histories!

👉 Would you like to know more about retention obligations? Please feel free to contact us: 
www.wsb-berater.com/kontakt

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