According to a newspaper report, Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) is calling for a stop to the sales receipt obligation that will apply in January.
The federal government should pursue the goal of "completely abolishing the obligation to issue documents," quoted "Bild" from a letter from Altmaier to Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz (SPD).
Altmaier points out that the supermarket chain Rewe, for example, expects an increase in "paper use at its checkouts by around 40 percent or around 140,000 kilometers of additional sales receipts per year" due to the obligation to pay that comes into effect at the turn of the year. "Billions of additional receipts are printed throughout the retail trade and in most cases end up directly in the trash."
Andrea Warnecke / DPA
Slip management, but also an instrument against tax evasion
Receipts are often printed on environmentally harmful thermal paper, Altmaier warned. Therefore, apart from the "considerable additional bureaucracy", this waste should also be avoided for "sustainability reasons".
The so-called obligation to issue documents is intended to increase transparency in the fight against tax fraud. According to "Bild", Altmaier rejects this reason in his letter as "not plausible" because retailers have to convert their cash registers to tamper-proof systems by September 2020. In addition, tax auditors have been able to use the "unannounced check-up since 2018, another test instrument".
Retailers will need to provide customers with proof of purchase with every purchase from January. The sales slip obligation applies to bakers, hairdressers and pharmacies if they have an electronic cash register system. To avoid waste, digital receipt transmission via app or email is also provided.
Italy, for example, has long introduced the receipt requirement, but business owners still found ways to evade taxes anyway. New idea: In future, the ticket will also count as a lottery ticket in the south of the Alps. This is how Italians should be made to fancy the receipt.