Sunday, December 15, 2019

The Receipt Story

If you arrived in Germany and walked around for a year, one obvious thing would stand out.  Whenever you stepped into a bakery, cafe, doner-shop, ice-cream shop, or Kiosk, the odds are like 90-percent that after you'd bought your 'stuff'....there was no receipt.  Frankly, you'd say that you didn't care.

Well....unless something shifts in the next couple of days....come January, they MUST print out a receipt. 

So opens up this big news item that started on Friday....where the Minister of Economics sent a note to the Minister of Finance, and asked for consideration of dumping this new rule.

What's this all about?

No one is saying that for decades that the cafes, bakeries, or Kiosks cheated on reporting their income, but the suggestion is strongly there.  By forcing a receipt out of them, they are reporting via their cash register system....the cash-flow. 

My personal suspicion is that come the end of 2020....there's going to be a minimum of two billion extra Euro in the tax revenue pot.  I also suspect that everyone in the cafe, bakery, or kiosk operations....will be raising their prices by 3 to 5 percent, to make up for the 'loss' of income.

Is the Minister of Economics (Pete Altmaier, CDU) correct to ask for taking down this rule?  That's a pro-business measure that he's suggesting.  He says the receipts aren't worth the hassle, when you are there to buy a two-scoop cup of ice cream, or a cake and coffee. 

It's an odd topic and a odd confrontation.  The Minister of Finance simply wants more tax revenue money in the pot, and he knows that some folks aren't being honest over income. 

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