It determines the price, both wholesale and
retail, at which the beer may be sold. The calculations are based upon
an estimate of the medium amount of fixed capital necessary for the
manufacture, then the labor, then the average price of barley and hops
at the October and November markets of each year; every item which
enters into the manufacture, including interest at five per cent on
capital, enters also into the government's calculation by which it
determines its tax and the price of beer. The price is never increased
or diminished by less than half a kreutzer, or two pfennigs, that is,
one-third of a cent, per mass. The fractional parts of this
half-kreutzer which may appear in the calculation are divided by a fixed
rule between the public and the brewer: that is, when the fraction is
one-fourth of a kreutzer, or less, the brewer must drop it for the
public benefit; when more, he may call it a half for his own benefit.
The government tax is nearly one kreutzer per mass, making about six
millions of florins. There is also in several places an additional local
beer-tax, amounting to nearly two million florins more.
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