Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
Regardless - there is a big difference between rate includes breakfast and it being itemised out as a figure chosen by the hotel and offering breakfast for EUR13. In the latter there is no reason at all for it to show on the invoice as anything other than what was quoted ( except if things like tax are applicable)
That doesn't make any logical sense at all. That is like saying that if I go to the supermarket and buy a litre of milk for $3, that I have actually made a donation to the supermarket and it has given me a free litre of milk and so therefore I am not entitled to a receipt for $3
There is a big difference - the hotel sponsors the breakfast by reducing the room rate.
The tax mantra is: The hotel needs to charge market value for the breakfast. The taxman receives a 7% chunk of the price of the room and a 19% chunk for the price of the breakfast. The hotel would be more than happy with the 7% over all and the tax authorities are aware of this - the hotels dealt with it like this in the past. Given that the tax authorities carefully check that breakfast is charged and taxed at market value.
Just imagine a typical Frankfurt IC breakfast at 25 EUR. 7% VAT are 1,63, 19% VAT are EUR 3,99, this makes a difference of EUR 2,36. Since VAT is included in the rate (and not charged extra), the hotel would be more than happy to get this difference of EUR 2,36 as extra profit. 2,63 per breakfast and about 200 guests a day is about 190.000 EUR a year. And these 190.000 EUR would be extra profit for the hotel (or loss for the tax authorities). Tax authorities are aware of this and act strictly Given that you will now normally find that breakfast either as an extra line item or shown separately in the tax breakdown with a price at market rate. It is different with some corporate rate where the hotels can argue that following market pressure they had to reduce the breakfast price; this however does not do the trick for individual bookings. As a consequence of this I will have a breakfast price of 25 EUR in Frankfurt when booking a normal rate and only 9,90 EUR when booking my corporate rate.