What is “Peppi” and what is the problem?

Peppi Guggenheim in Berlin is much more than just a neighborhood bar—for 15 years, it has been a one-of-a-kind meeting place for music, art, and community in the heart of the district of Neukölln. Peppi has an extensive cultural program: Outstanding jazz concerts and performances take place on Fridays and Saturdays, DJ evenings on Thursdays, and PeppiOke every first Monday in the month. All of this takes place on a donation basis, which would not be possible without the volunteer engagements of the numerous culture lovers who regard Peppi as a home away from home.

But Peppi’s existence is now at stake: Corona and an onerous tax debt have brought the bar to its knees. Some of you will perhaps now ask: What’s going on, why doesn’t the proprietor Georg Weishäupl pay his taxes? He’s naturally done so, but what this is now about is an additional tax debt or, strictly speaking, an outrageous injustice that is also driving other bar owners to despair. Since the bar owners are simply doing something that has been common practice for centuries: giving discounts to regular guests and free drinks to artists and volunteer helpers. A purely normal human practice and in purely mathematical terms, so to say, advertising losses. But this practice is not recognized or only to a very small extent on the part of the tax office. It instead chooses to turn losses into earnings, for which—of course—taxes must be paid. Something is fundamentally going wrong here!
Since, while Peppi’s program has never generated real financial profits, it has attracted the support and huge dedication of a passionate, multinational team. 

Following this brief summary, you can now calculate for yourselves what losses—for the tax office, profit—Georg, the owner of Peppi, has amassed with the two concerts per week as well as various other events over the years since 2018.
We now need you to help us to cover these debts — and thus our motto: come, enjoy, drink, donate!