It's time again for me to sit down and do some book-keeping stuff, and it's the time of year to take care of the tax homework. Sigh.

So I'll be going over my accounting stuff once more, and then do all the filling out and checking and calculating and double-checking once more, so that everything can be filed and paid and will be done and dealt with. And then there's this tiny little thing coming up at the end of the month... the temporary change in German VAT rates.

If you're not living in Germany, you will probably not have heard of that (or did you? Did it make the news in your country?). As part of the "let's get our economy back on track" package, the government has decided to lower VAT rates for 6 months.

The idea behind this isn't bad. For instance, for the gastronomy (which has had a lot of losses during the enforced closure time), with a lower tax rate, some more money will stay in their account if they keep the prices the same. For other companies that can afford it, they can pass the lower tax rate on to their customers, fully or partly, by reducing their prices a bit - so customers have more money and can spend more on stuff they need or want.

So far, so good. There's a few hitches in that plan, though, that makes it not completely brilliant for everyone. First of all, lowering the VAT rate from 19% to 16%, or from 7 to 5%, means that actual savings are at most about 2-3% of the regular price, so it's no huge reduction. It will definitely help struggling businesses to get a bit more revenue, if they leave the prices as is. That will however defy the second aspect of the government's plan, which is to have everybody spend more because things are cheaper.

There is, also, that teeny-tiny issue of having to change VAT rates and, if you wish to pass things on to the customer, prices. All of them. Which is, if you have to do it by hand, or have to print new menus and new stickers and new labels and new everything, quite an issue. If you are a large enough business to run your things with electronic cashier desks, those have to get software updates (which usually have to be done by specialist people, whom you have to get into your shop...). So in some cases, doing the change and undoing it again in 6 months' time will be a hassle, a huge effort, and something that costs quite a bit of time and money (and probably nerves).

I've looked into my shop system, and there is definitely no possibility for me to change all the prices to the VAT-adjusted lower amount without a lot of extra time to spend (which I'd rather spend on other things). I'll have to look into it some more during the next few days... and find a good solution that will hopefully satisfy everybody.