Germany wants to cancel mandatory paper cash vouchers for all offline purchases. The German Federation of Retailers (HDE), as well as representatives of small businesses and consumer organizations in Germany came up with this initiative.. They were supported by the German Ministry of Economics.

They proposed replacing these checks with environmentally friendly alternatives that spend less physical resources - for example, electronic checks, writes Europuls.

The law on mandatory checks for all purchases, even small and insignificant ones, was adopted so that retailers could not evade taxes. The law entered into force on January 1 of this year.. A similar scheme has long been operating in Austria, Portugal, Italy, France and other EU countries.. In Russia, checks are also required for all purchases..

But German retailers believe that checks on physical media are an unjustified waste of resources, because buyers do not always need checks, and merchants keep accounts and without checks. For example, modern cash registers have built-in chips that register purchases. Thus, the tax authorities can consider all transactions without checks.

In addition, check paper is not recycled, and this contradicts the principles of the cyclical economy that the EU is developing.

Meanwhile, according to the German Ministry of Finance, the state budget annually receives less than 10 billion euros of tax revenues from retail (this is about 2% of the German budget). Therefore, the ministry insists on additional accounting for purchases.

Among the decisions under consideration is to leave mandatory checks, but introduce relief for outlets that are forced to knock out more than 500 checks per day. Another option is to oblige merchants to use new tamper-resistant cash registers. Their effectiveness will be tested in Berlin from October this year..