Do people ever stop and wonder WHY in nations like Portugal the informal economy is roughly DOUBLE of say the US? When every invoice must be available to the government, what actually ends up happening is non-conforming invoices either get made up by the customer or the money magically flows out under some other auspice.
Making it literally illegal to accept an invoice that is legal in the country in which you obtained it borders on logic even my toddler can understand is absolutely begging for bad business climate or tax evasion.
What is the mechanism for French government to subpoena a non-EU business to find this invoice? If the customer (instead of vendor) produced an invoice that matched their bank statements and non-conforming receipt, hypothetically, would anyone really know the difference?
- I am Frenchy (a French co) - Buying software from Ricky (a US co)
If I don't have a proper invoice from Ricky to give to my accountant at the end of the year, and I get a tax control, then, I'll be fined.
If the tax ministry notices large amounts of similar fines, they might look at Ricky.
So the risk is more on Frenchy (risk to be fined). But I'd say that Ricky is safe for a while, unless the invoiced amount are really huge.
You don't even know what freedom is or how fundamental an issue it is to the United States.
It's not EU governments or post-purchase issues you have to deal, most of the time - it's trying to persuade a large accounting department to pay you unaccountable money. If you can't follow their invoicing requirements, it's just not going to happen.