Article 2 
1. Member States shall adopt and publish, by 31 December 2020 at the latest, the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive. They shall forthwith communicate to the Commission the text of those provisions. They shall apply those measures from 1 January 2021. When Member States adopt those measures, they shall contain a reference to this Directive or be accompanied by such a reference on the occasion of their official publication. Member States shall determine how such reference is to be made. 2. Member States shall communicate to the Commission the text of the main provisions of national law which they adopt in the field covered by this Directive.
Amendment rationale: CONTEXT OF THE PROPOSAL Reasons for and objectives of the proposal On 5 December 2017, the Council adopted Directive (EU) 2017/2455 1 (“the VAT e-commerce Directive”) amending Directive 2006/112/EC 2 (“the VAT Directive”) and Directive 2009/132/EC 3 as regards certain value added tax obligations for supplies of services and distance sales of goods. On 21 November 2019, the Council adopted Directive (EU) 2019/1995 4 (“the second VAT e-commerce Directive”) amending the VAT Directive as regards provisions relating to distance sales of goods and certain domestic supplies of goods. The date of application of the major part of this comprehensive package of legislation on modernising VAT for cross-border B2C e-commerce (“VAT e-commerce package”) was fixed to be 1 January 2021, allowing Member States sufficient time to adapt their legislation and IT systems. The Commission presented a state of play of the readiness of Member States on 14 February 2020, whereby most Member States confirmed that they would be in a position to apply the rules by due date. Two Member States raised concerns and requested a postponement for the entry into application by one year or more. The Commission offered assistance to those Member States encountering difficulties in order to help them overcome these hurdles and remained confident that Member States would be ready by 1 January 2021. However, due to the unforeseen outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis and its major impact, Member States had to shift priorities and re-allocate resources from the implementation of the VAT e-commerce package to fighting this pandemic. Therefore, other Member States cannot guarantee anymore to be able to finalise the preparatory work to apply the new rules by 1 January 2021, including a timely transposition of the aforementioned Directives into national law. The IT system at national level required to implement the rules laid down in the VAT e-commerce Directives seriously risks to be delayed and thus jeopardises several Member States to be ready to apply the new rules as of 1 January 2021. Similar concerns were raised by key economic operators, especially postal and courier operators, who urged the Commission to postpone the date of application of the VAT e-commerce package by 6 months due to the COVID-19 crisis. The Commission held a meeting with Member States on 24 April 2020 to assess their readiness to apply the new rules as of 1 January 2021. The majority of Member States still confirmed to be ready to apply them on time, but stressed that the provisions on the functioning of the VAT e-commerce package are based on the principle that all Member States should be in a position to apply them correctly and would therefore be ready to support a postponement not exceeding 6 months. Taking into account the above, the objective of this proposal is to postpone the 1 January 2021 date of application of the amendments set out in Council Directive (EU) 2017/2455 and Council Directive (EU) 2019/1995 by six months. The new date of application shall thus be 1 July 2021. A postponement of six months is suggested, because the delay should be kept as short as possible to minimise additional budgetary losses for Member States. 
Revised version (Article 2 ):
1. Member States shall adopt and publish, by 30 June 2021 at the latest, the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive. They shall forthwith communicate to the Commission the text of those provisions. They shall apply those measures from 1 July 2021. When Member States adopt those measures, they shall contain a reference to this Directive or be accompanied by such a reference on the occasion of their official publication. Member States shall determine how such reference is to be made. 2. Member States shall communicate to the Commission the text of the main provisions of national law which they adopt in the field covered by this Directive.
Article 3 
This Directive shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union .
Article 4 
This Directive is addressed to the Member States.