Excise revenues down
The compulsory deposit on beer cans which was introduced in January this year, is going to hurt the German Länder (the individual states) badly. At the end of the year their tax coffers will show a gaping hole of EUR67 million. Apparently consumers do not like to switch from beer in cans to beer in returnable bottles - a system favoured by the government and the small and medium-sized brewers. Instead they refuse to drink beer full stop. In January and February sales of beer declined 8.2 percent. As the president of the German brewers’ association Dr Richard Weber was quoted a saying: "The compulsory deposit on beer cans is going to cost German brewers between 8 million and 10 million hl in sales this year alone." Last year domestic beer sales were 107..
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