Jörg Meyer from “Le Lion”
Well-known Hamburg bar owner does away with cash – and gets angry letters
In many German bars you pay with cash – not so in “Le Lion” in Hamburg.
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He is the inventor of the Gin Basil Smash and runs a successful bar in Hamburg. But now Jörg Meyer has decided to abolish cash payments. He explains this step in detail in a newsletter.
But the past few years with Corona and inflation have hit the restaurant business hard. Jörg Meyer has now decided to take a drastic step, about which he provides detailed information in his “7cl Business” newsletter. Although his bar is well frequented and the guests want to drink, he has to work on the costs – but wants to avoid losses in quality. And so he decided to take the following action: “In short: I want to abolish cash as a means of payment in my Bar Le Lion,” he writes in the newsletter.
Gastronomy as a “cash-intensive industry”
He explains in detail why he considers the step necessary: ”I have to protect my company, keep my employees’ jobs and simply secure my existence from the tax office and a state arbitrariness called ‘cash-intensive industry’,” writes Meyer.
In the newsletter, the bar owner explains exactly what this is all about. Cash-intensive businesses such as gastronomy are often under the special surveillance of the tax authorities. In order to combat black money and money laundering, the tax office was granted the legal right to treat such companies “differently”.
This has consequences: “An important aspect of this different treatment is lifting the presumption of innocence,” says Meyer. “In short: Normally, the tax office has to prove tax fraud. However, this is not the case in cash-intensive sectors such as gastronomy.” The tax office is allowed to estimate the turnover, and the restaurateur is obliged to prove his innocence, according to Meyer. “Otherwise you pay.”
Jörg Meyer: “Absurd amount of documentation”
This is where the abolition of cash comes into play: “If you open or operate a catering business and accept cash, you very quickly run the risk that the tax office will assess your business very differently from you during a tax audit. And if you do your bookkeeping on the subject of cash If you don’t have incredibly complex documentation under control, your accounting can be discarded.” As soon as that is the case, as a bar operator you no longer have legal security. “It is then up to the examiner how that is interpreted.”
Jörg Meyer draws the conclusion for his company that “the absurd amount of documentation” and the risk of accounting distortions are not worthwhile for the possibility of paying in cash – especially since in his case it accounts for 10 to a maximum of 20 percent of the total turnover.
Meyer lists other disadvantages that paying with cash entails, such as the need to always have large amounts of change on hand, for which banks now also charge fees. In addition, there are costs for a safe and for insurance and significantly higher personnel costs.
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The “Le Lion” owner is aware that the abolition of cash payments is a sensitive issue for some people. Meyer had to experience this himself when he promoted this newsletter on his social media channels. “After a few hours, two or three very harsh hostilities came by direct message,” writes Meyer. “They called me a loser, said it was my duty to ‘fight’ for freedom instead of government surveillance, and that my bar would now be avoided.”
However, Jörg Meyer does not want to be dissuaded from his decision. In the coming weeks he will begin to implement his plan: “Finally get rid of cash and circumnavigate the questionable injustice with which tax offices are allowed to rate gastronomy.”
Sources: “Difford’s Guide”, “7cl Business”