Do I still need paper tax invoices after e-invoicing starts?

Article 65 - Conditions and Requirements for Issuing Tax Invoices28 29 1. A Registrant making a Taxable Supply shall issue an original Tax Invoice and deliver it to the Recipient of Goods or Recipient of Services. 2. A Registrant making a Deemed Supply shall issue an original Tax Invoice and deliver it to a Recipient of Goods or Recipient of Services if available or keep it in his records if there is no Recipient of Goods or Recipient of Services. 3. The Executive Regulation of this Decree-Law shall specify all of the following: a. Data to be included in the Tax Invoice. b. The conditions and procedures required to issue a Tax Invoice by electronic means. c. Instances where the Registrant is not required to issue and deliver a Tax Invoice to the Recipient of Goods or the Recipient of Services. d. Instances where other documents may be issued in place of the Tax Invoice as well as the conditions thereof and the data to be included therein. e. Instances where a Person may issue a Tax Invoice on behalf of the registered 28 Article amended as per Federal Decree-Law No. 18 of 2022. 29 Article amended as per Federal Decree-Law No. 16 of 2024. Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 and its amendments – As published by the Ministry of Finance 32 supplier. 4. Any Person receiving an amount as Tax or issuing a Tax Invoice in respect of an amount, must pay such amount to the Authority, and this amount shall be regarded as being similar to Due Tax under the provisions of this Decree-Law. 5. For the purpose of this Article, the Registrant subject to the Electronic Invoicing System must issue and transmit Tax Invoices in the form of an Electronic Invoice, in accordance with the Electronic Invoicing System.

Small Business Relief works by treating eligible Resident Persons as having no Taxable Income if their Revenue is equal to or below AED 3,000,000 for the relevant Tax Period and all previous Tax Periods. Therefore, in order to demonstrate that they have no Taxable Income, the eligible Resident Persons must be able to provide evidence to the FTA that their Revenue did not exceed the Small Business Relief threshold for all relevant Tax Periods. As every Business is different, there is no prescribed list of documentation or records that should be maintained. However, examples of documents which need to be kept include but is not limited to: ● ● ● ● ● Bank statements; Sales ledgers; Invoices or other records of daily earnings, such as till rolls; Order records and delivery notes; and Other relevant Business correspondence. There is no requirement that documents are maintained in their original format and it may be possible to keep them in an alternative format. For example, paper receipts could be scanned and stored electronically. Whatever storage medium is chosen, the records need to be readable and available to the FTA on request. Businesses are responsible for the storage of their own records and documentation. Taxable Persons must provide the FTA with any information, documents or records reasonably required by the FTA when requested to do so. The records must, therefore, be easily accessible if the FTA requests them. Record keeping period All Businesses must keep records and documents for seven years following the end of the Tax Period to which they relate.63 This requirement applies to the Tax Period to which the documents relate, and not the Tax Period in which they were created. For example, if a Taxable Person uses the cash basis accounting method, they may have invoices which were raised in the Tax Period before the one in which they were paid. In this instance the seven-year period starts from the end of the Tax Period in which the invoices were paid, and not the date that they were created. 63 Article 56 of the Corporate Tax Law. Corporate Tax Guide | Small Business Relief | CTGSBR1 38