HOW TO SAVE 19% AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE.....

Today my big base errand is to update our VAT forms. It occurred to me that I had no idea what a VAT form was before I got here – and that made me want to share my new knowledge with you!

Since we are technically not German citizens, Germany acknowledges that we shouldn’t have to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) – which is very fair and gracious of them…and very German to be so precise! Since the Euro is roughly 20 cents stronger than the dollar – and VAT is an additional 19% automatically added to the price of everything - this pretty much levels the playing field in the currency department.

Here’s how it works: We purchase (for about $3 each) up to 10 VAT waiver forms from the Customs office on base. When we decide we are ready to make a purchase, we bring the VAT form to the counter and (assuming they accept them) they knock 19% off of the price of the item. They sign and initial, we sign and initial and after a distribution of carbon copies, we’re out the door. One of their copies goes to the German government, one of our copies goes to the US government - and, no, it hasn't escaped my realization that now in addition to my husband monitoring my spending, I have two countries to which I am now accountable!!

Since we can only have 10 forms in hand at a time, we need to submit the US copy of the used forms to the Customs office in order to purchase new blank ones. God help you if you lose a form…I don’t know what happens then – but we’ve been warned, so we intend to never find out!

There are a few rules…the vendor has to accept the VAT form. Since the onus is on them to ensure that the government understands why their receipts are low, that seems fair. As a general rule, you can’t use the form on consumables (so the grocery store and restaurant are “no’s”, although counter-intuitively, hotel and rental car charges are "yes's"). Most importantly, you can’t use the form to buy something for someone else – we certainly don’t want to abuse our privileges. We've got a pretty good thing going here....

With most of our energy focused on securing housing lately, we have used our first 10 VAT forms almost exclusively on our hotel charges. (Although I just used one yesterday on a cozy gray sweater for the seemingly autumn-like weather we’ve been having). Thus, today, my stay-at-home-trophy-wife job is to trot on over to the VAT office and turn in our receipts so I can buy 10 new forms. We’ll need one for our next round of hotel charges tomorrow – and – hey – we’re moving soon – and there’s still more nesting shopping to be done :)