Abschreibung, called Absetzung für Abnutzung in tax language, means a device used over several years is not deducted in one year. The purchase price enters the accounts as an asset and is then written down in instalments across the period the device is expected to serve. Part of the cost is therefore deducted in each of those years instead of all of it in the first.
The effect on the first year is the part owners notice. Paying for equipment out of the bank account and then finding that most of the payment does not reduce the taxable result of that year feels wrong until the mechanism is clear. The cash left the business at once, while the deduction is spread across the years of use, so the two are not the same event. That is also why a heavy investment year can show a solid Betriebsergebnis and a strained bank balance at the same time.
How long the write down runs is not a matter of judgement. The useful life applied comes from the official depreciation tables published by the tax administration. Those tables are revised, so the period that applied to a device bought some years ago is not necessarily the period that applies to one bought now. Items of low value are treated differently again, with simplified options that let smaller purchases be written off faster or immediately. The boundaries for those options change as well. This is exactly the sort of detail the Steuerberater settles, and it should be settled before the device is ordered instead of at the year end.
Two neighbouring questions are often mixed into this one:
- Whether the device is bought at all matters, because the alternative described under Leasing oder Kauf von Laborgeräten changes the treatment entirely.
- Whether part of the deduction can be claimed in a year before the purchase matters too, and that is the mechanism covered under Investitionsabzugsbetrag.
Neither question changes what the device costs, because both of them only change the year in which the tax effect applies.
For a pharmacy running a priced service, the practical consequence is in the monthly reporting. If the device stays in one asset line while the write down goes into a general cost account, the service looks cheaper to operate than it is. Booking the annual charge against the service in the Betriebswirtschaftliche Auswertung makes the equipment share of the cost per appointment visible while there is still time to act on it.
This glossary entry is general information about German pharmacy law and practice. It is not legal advice. For binding guidance on your own pharmacy, contact your Landesapothekerkammer.
