I'm a simple emigrant, and I was kicked out of the cafe

One summer we were walking with a girlfriend and wanted to eat ice cream. The cafe was basically a kiosk with wooden tables and benches outside. It was at the entrance to the park, and we decided not to sit down, just buy a couple of scoops of ice cream and keep going. We bought them, and then we saw that there was a little tower right at the park entrance. Well, we didn’t want to haul the ice cream up the stairs. So we changed our minds and sat down, in short. And as soon as we sat, everyone who was involved in running this cafe, one after another, swarmed over us. The granddaughter for grandma, the grandma for grandpa. I don’t remember exactly, but I think even the neighbor’s dog came by to bark at us. They were shouting like crazy, even though there were empty tables. And the thing lasted at most a couple of minutes, but it felt like three hours, and somehow among all the shouting I managed to realize that take-away ice cream is sold at a different price from ice cream in the restaurant. That is, by sitting there we basically put them in a spot where they’d face trouble, or are we tax inspectors? Well, of course we left. And I understand they were right, but the aftertaste, to put it mildly, remained. Because what matters is not what they said, but how they did it. 😎 The thing is that in Germany there are different taxation rules for selling food and for providing catering services. The VAT rate on food as a product is 7%, and things like delivery are included in this group. Whereas VAT on catering services, when there are tables, service, etc., is a full 19%. Therefore in Germany even rum baba can’t be sold so easily. I can see in your eyes the question why you usually see the same prices. Answer: there are several options how and why this is done. First, some goods are always treated as sales, for example ready-made sandwiches or pastries in boxes or drinks in bottles. Second, some chains initially calculate an average price so that the tax difference is spread over the entire volume of sales. Therefore, for example, at McDonald’s you always see one price. Third, cafés simply don’t want to hassle customers with different prices and constantly explain this duality, and set a single price, earning a little less if you eat inside and a little more if you take away. So this is all a trick to rack up classes. In fact, legally too the cash register still splits sales into different tax rates, if the cafe isn’t cheating, of course. Have you ever found yourself in such a situation? #Ordnung #useful #money