Mineral oil tax

The mineral oil tax is a tax levied on the consumption of mineral oil and other energy sources. In Germany it was replaced by the energy tax in 2006 .

General

The petroleum tax burden among other motorized individual transport , the railways (if not electrically operated), the General Aviation and truck traffic, not against the international aviation : its fuel is tax free in most countries. Proposals and attempts to introduce a supranational kerosene tax - for example in favor of the United Nations - have so far failed.

The users of the road network should pay the costs of building and maintaining the road network by means of mineral oil tax (" polluter pays principle "); in addition, external costs arising from road traffic are to be internalized . In  2007, a study by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) determined external costs for Germany of around 3 cents per kilometer driven. This includes costs that are difficult to quantify or that only arise on a case-by-case basis. For example, noise costs were calculated; these can only arise if the noise from a car actually reaches third parties (noise immission, noise pollution ).

However, it is a difficult and complex undertaking to determine all the societal costs of road transport.

EU regulation

The EU has prescribed minimum mineral oil tax rates to its member states since January 1, 2004 (Directive 2003/96 / EC on the restructuring of the Community framework for the taxation of energy products and electrical energy, EU Energy Tax Directive ) .

Unequal treatment

Energy and mineral oil taxes introduce unequal tax treatment of gasoline and diesel ( Energy Tax Act (Germany): Comparison of Energy Tax Rates 2007 ). As a result, diesel vehicles in Germany were taxed around 254 billion euros less in the period from 1990 to 2015 compared to gasoline vehicles.

National regulations

• the Energy Tax Act (Germany) regulates the mineral oil tax in Germany
• the mineral oil tax in Austria
• the mineral oil tax in Switzerland

Web links

Wiktionary: Mineral oil tax  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Uwe Kunert et al. / DIW Berlin: The taxes on motor vehicles in Europe in 2005 . Research project on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Finance. PDF, 167 pages.

literature

• Uwe Kunert, Hartmut Kuhfeld, Stefan Bach , Abdulkerim Keser: The taxes on motor vehicles in Europe (= German Institute for Economic Research . Special issue. 174). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11143-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ europa.eu: Presentation of the EU (as of April 2014)
2. ↑ Tax advantage of 254 billion euros at the diesel fuel pump . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 24, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
3. ↑ Reading sample .