Here, you can find out briefly and concisely what you need to know about working with deposits on your orderbird MINI.
But first: A fancy disclaimer!
Attention!
Please take note of the following information: orderbird does not offer legal or tax advice. Everything we write reflects our experience and the experience of our customers. Any information with legal or tax aspects is in no way to be considered legal or tax advice. Therefore, it may be that this approach is not applicable to you and your business in particular.
For binding statements, please contact your tax advisor. orderbird excludes any liability for the topicality, correctness and completeness of the information that orderbird provides here with regard to tax procedures.
Deposit and deposit
In general, there are two different types of deposit in Germany: 1.) the legally regulated deposit, e.g. for returnable bottles, and 2.) The free deposit.
The legally regulated deposit
This includes the bottle deposit, like beer bottles and PET bottles. The deposit is taxed based on the tax of the initial item.
Example: You sell a 1.5 L water bottle, which is taxed with 19 %. If you take the deposit for it, the deposit (e.g. €0.25) is also taxed with 19 %.
This is how it looks on your receipt:
| Deposit | Deposit returned |
 |
 |
The free deposit
If you loan items to your customers and want to take a deposit for it - reunion is fun - you can choose the amount and take 0 % as the tax rate.
Example: You sell a planted bowl. In addition to the cost of the plants (€17.99), which is taxed at 19%, you take a deposit of €20. You do not have to pay tax on this and can therefore take the tax rate of 0%.
This is how it looks on your receipt:
| Deposit | Deposit returned |
 |
 |
Note: If you have a surplus of untaxed deposit on your next tax return, it will be taxed then.