German beer duty (Biersteuer)

Breww can quickly and accurately calculate German beer duty (Biersteuer) for you. As long as you tell Breww everything that happens (production, packaging, deliveries, returns, etc), Breww works out your taxable quantities automatically and presents your totals grouped by degrees Plato and ELFMA type, in the same shape as the official beer tax declaration (Biersteueranmeldung).

Running your Biersteuer report

To run your report for a given period, click the Biersteuer tab on the left-hand menu and enter the date range you'd like to report on.

Totals

The Totals section presents your quantities in the same layout as the beer tax declaration, with one column per combination of degrees Plato and ELFMA type, and the following rows:

• Row 1 - steuerpflichtig - beer that became taxable during the period.

• Row 2 - versteuertes Rückbier - taxed beer that was returned to you.

• Row 3 - zu versteuern - the quantity to be taxed (the difference between rows 1 and 2).

• Row 5 - unversteuert an andere Steuerlager im Steuergebiet abgegeben - beer delivered under duty suspension to other tax warehouses within Germany.

• Row 6 - unversteuert an andere Steuerlager in anderen Mitgliedstaaten abgegeben - beer delivered under duty suspension to other EU member states.

• Row 7 - sonstige Abgänge - other removals, such as exports to countries outside the EU.

All quantities are stated in hectolitres with fractions of a litre disregarded, as the declaration requires (for example, 305.7 litres is shown as 3.05).

Degrees Plato and ELFMA

Each column of the Totals section is a combination of degrees Plato and ELFMA type:

• Degrees Plato - the original wort gravity of the beer in degrees Plato, rounded down to a whole degree, as the declaration requires.

• ELFMA - the production type letter. Breww sets this automatically from the Brew type of each batch:

Breww only assigns the E and L letters. The other ELFMA letters (F for foreign beer, and M/A for mixtures of beer with non-alcoholic beverages) are not assigned automatically.

Breakdown

Beneath the totals, the Breakdown card has a tab for each part of the report - Payable totals, Reclaimable totals, Delivered untaxed (within Germany), Delivered untaxed to other Member States and Delivered untaxed to rest of the world. Each tab shows the individual beer, container type, Plato, ABV and ELFMA combinations that make up the totals. To see every entry that made up a row, click the View entries button to its right, ensuring your Biersteuer reporting is fully and easily auditable.

Exporting to Excel

You can export the report to Excel. The export contains a Summary sheet with the totals per degrees Plato and ELFMA type (Grad P, ELFMA, Steuerpflichtig, Versteuertes Rückbier and Zu versteuern), and a Breakdown sheet with every payable and reclaimable row.

Setting up your drink types for German beer duty

When creating or editing a drink type under Settings -> Production settings -> General production settings, select German beer as the duty type. Breweries based in Germany will have their Beer drink type set up this way automatically.

Once a drink type has been created, the duty type cannot be changed.

Degrees Plato on beers and batches

German beer duty is based on degrees Plato rather than ABV, so Breww asks for a Degrees Plato value on every beer that uses a German beer duty drink type.

Each batch also carries its own degrees Plato value, and which value is used follows the same source as your ABV. To choose which source you'd like to use, go to Settings -> Beer duty settings and set your preferred option beneath Default ABV calculations:

• Advertised - the beer's degrees Plato value is used.

• Measured - the batch's degrees Plato is taken automatically from the batch's original gravity reading.

• Manual - you enter the degrees Plato on the batch yourself.

For derived-at-packaging drinks, each batch has its own source setting, which chooses between the drink's own values and the batch's values.

Alcohol-free beer

Beer with an alcohol content of 0.5% ABV or below is not subject to Biersteuer, so it is automatically excluded from the report and carries no duty.

Duty rates and reduced rates for smaller breweries

Breww has the German beer duty rate (per hectolitre per degree Plato) built in and keeps it up to date, so there is no need to enter duty rates manually.

Independent breweries whose total production in the previous calendar year was below 200,000 hectolitres qualify for reduced rates (Staffelsteuersätze) under §2 of the Biersteuergesetz. The reduced rate tapers in steps from 50% of the full rate (for an annual production of 5,000 hectolitres or less) up to the full rate at 200,000 hectolitres. Breww applies the correct percentage automatically based on the production totals you enter. Breww does not check whether your brewery meets the independence conditions in §2(3) of the Biersteuergesetz, so it remains your responsibility to confirm you qualify for the reduced rates.

For Breww to do this, you need to enter your annual production totals in Settings -> Beer duty settings. Each year, Breww will ask you for your actual output for the previous calendar year and your estimated output for the current year. If a production total covering a date is missing, Breww will let you know that it cannot calculate the duty amount until it has been entered.

The Biersteueranmeldung itself only asks for quantities, so the duty rate does not affect the figures on the report. Breww uses the rate to calculate the nominal duty amount on each of your products automatically, using the product's degrees Plato and container size. This is the amount used when, for example, duty-free pricing removes duty from a customer's prices.

How does Breww determine when beer becomes taxable?

Breww will determine that beer has become taxable (steuerpflichtig) when it is either dispatched as part of a delivery that is not for export or under duty suspension, or it is moved to a Non-bonded location.

• Deliveries under duty suspension within Germany (to another tax warehouse) appear in row 5 rather than becoming taxable.

• Deliveries to other EU member states appear in row 6, and exports outside the EU appear in row 7. Neither becomes taxable.

• Returns - if taxed beer is returned to a bonded location, it goes back under duty suspension and the returned quantity is shown as versteuertes Rückbier (row 2), reducing the quantity to be taxed. If it is later dispatched again, it will become taxable again at that point.