Recognition of cash receipts for cash-intensive businesses

Even before the Cash Act came into force, there was no structural enforcement deficit in cash-intensive businesses.

The complaint of a hotel and catering business, which had to be decided by the Federal Fiscal Court, probably followed the principle of "you can give it a try." The company argued that there was a structural enforcement deficit in the recording of cash income in cash-intensive businesses, at least in the disputed year 2015, which prevented all market participants from being taxed equally. The legislator was responsible for this enforcement deficit, which is why the full taxation of the cash income generated by the plaintiff would violate the constitutionally required principle of equality.

However, the Federal Fiscal Court dismissed the claim because it believes that in the year in dispute there was a reasonable risk of detection in the event of manipulation, even for operators of an open store cash register. A residual enforcement deficit that nevertheless existed for cash-intensive businesses with open store cash registers was not attributable to the legislature. However, the legislator was required to check soon whether the legislative measures taken since 2016 had led to an improvement in enforcement in this area as well.