Did Radeberger mislead consumers and the taxman?

The scale of the Corona empties scandal can be measured in its ever-widening ripples. After the German environmental pressure group Deutsche Umwelthilfe revealed in early July that brewer Radeberger had deceived consumers for years about what happened to the Corona bottles once they had been returned to Mexico as empties (where they were not refilled and shipped back to Germany as required by German law), the matter has now been taken up by the Association of Private Breweries.

The Association of Private Breweries in Germany, a large professional organisation of German breweries, has asked the Hessian taxman to investigate if Radeberger dodged paying VAT because of the empties scam.

It is believed that, by charging consumers EUR 0.08 in deposit for reusable Corona empties instead of EUR 0.25 for non-refillable ones (which the previous practice between Radeberger and Modelo de facto comes down to), Radeberger has deprived the taxman of x-amount of VAT.

“We will make sure that Radeberger honours the German recycle system for beer bottles and that a genuine reusable and refillable system is set up”, Roland Demleitner, the Managing Director of the Association of Private Breweries in Germany said.