User:Something Wicked/Translation/Environmental Tax
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Notes:
- This article describes the situation in Germany. There ought to be links on the pages “Green politics”, “Green tax shift” and pages concerning specifically German politics.
- As this subject is Germany-specific and a complicated tangle of existing German tax law, politics and the German state pension system, it is proposed that more articles are translated for further information:,. Moreover, the article on “excise” needs to be cleaned up and vastly expanded, perhaps incorporating text from the German WP (). Furthermore, it is proposed that the article on car tax is expanded to fit the German version of this tax. Perhaps, this should be done via a disambiguation page under “car tax”, referring to the UK version as well as a German version (to be partly translated as well,.
The Ecology tax is a tax on energy consumption, i.e. on behavoir that affects the environment in a negative way.
The concept was first concieved at the begin of the 1980s by the Swiss economist Hans Christoph Binswanger and connects two approaches:
- Taxation of the scarce good energy with the aim of establishing a energy-concious behavoir.
- Enlargment of the basis for financing social security.
Ecology taxes therefore use tax law to realize concerns of environmental policy by means of taxation. This is often referred to as ecologisation of tax law, meaning that new taxes are introduced or single regulations are altered to control taxation in a way favourable to environmental protection.
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[edit] Macroeconomical concerns
The ecology tax arises from the observation that markets for non-renewable resources like * oil are not inherently stable in the long run, as natural supply of fossil energy is limited.
From the point of long-term considerations and sustainability, the mineral oil of today's market is too cheap and oil of the future is too expensive. A tax on mineral oil should anticipate a rise in oil prices to smoothen it on the one hand, and on the other to familiarize the markets with the price's steady rise. Moreover, the use of energy-efficient vehicles should be cheaper in comparison to normal vehicles to encourage technological research on that matter. There are even opinions that this could led to a rise of a competitive industry whose energy-efficient products may experience a meteoric rise in proliferation if the price for mineral oil indeed increases.
[edit] Ecologic tax reform in Germany
[edit] Summary
The ecologic tax reform was based on the criticism that the existing tax law didn’t take into account the protection of the environment. An example was the car tax’s orientation at cylinder capacity, not at the vehicle’s environmental impact. The core principle of the ecologic tax reform is the concept of “dual dividend”, the internalization of external effects: on the one hand reducing pollution, on the other generating more tax income for the exchequer.
[edit] Ecologic tax laws in Germany
Since 1998, the Bundestag passed several bills, aiming at “ecologising the tax law”.
- The “Law for the start of ecological tax reform” (Gesetz zum Einstieg in die ökologische Steuerreform', BGBl. I. p. 378), enacted on March 24 1999, introduced a new energy consumption tax Power from regenerative sources is not included in the bill. For large-scale industry, the tax rate was reduced 40 % for the sake of international competitiveness. The mineral oil tax was phased according to ecological criterias; several environmentally-friendly users of mineral oil had their tax rates reduced. Beginning in 1999, the tax rate was raised several times up to 2003.
- The “Law for the continuation of ecological tax reform” (Gesetz zur Fortführung der ökologischen Steuerreform, BGBl. I p. 2432), enacted on December 16 1999, exempted gas and steam turbine power plants with a high efficiency factor from the mineral oil tax for a fixed time. Moreover, several amendments to the first law were made with the intention of avoiding supposed negative effects.
- The “Law for the development of ecological tax reform” (Gesetz zur Fortentwicklung der ökologischen Steuerreform, BGBl. P. 4602), enacted on December 23 2002, introduced a phased increase of the mineral oil tax rate.
- The German ecology tax also serves for the generation of tax income to support the state pension system. Consequently, even if the ecology tax were abolished, the financial burden would not be lightened, only allotted in a different way, either as larger pension system contributions of employees (about 1,7 % higher), as lower pensions, or higher state deficit.
- Currently (as of 2006), an amendment of car tax law is proposed, because of new EU legislation concerning particulate matter. Specifically, it is proposed to raise the tax rate for all those cars that are not equipped with a specialized filter device.
| Year | Tax income (Mil. €) |
Amount used for the stabilization of the Pension system |
Amount used for the support of regenerative energy research |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 8800 | 8400 | 100 |
| 2001 | 11.800 | 11.200 | 200 |
| 2002 | 14.300 | 13.700 | 200 |
| 2003 | 18.700 | 16.100 | 100 |
| 2004 | 18.100 | 16.000 | 100 |
Source: BT-Drs. 15/5212 (April 7 2005)
[edit] Exemption of air traffic
Although aircrafts cause specific environmental damage, air traffic is exempted from the ecology tax for reasons of competitiveness.
[edit] Effects in border regions
In border regions, motorists bypass the ecology tax by refueling in neighboring EU countries where the prices for fuel are considerably lower. Therefore, petrol stations on the German side of the border have to close down, resulting in a loss of jobs. Because of this, it was discussed to introduce special regulations for border regions. However, this proposal was not accepted.
[edit] Inspection by the Supreme Constitutional Court
On April 20 2004, the First Senate of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Supreme Constitutional Court of Germany) ascertained the ecology tax's constitutionality. Several logistic firms and cold storage companies had issued a constitutional complaint against the new regulations.
Complete Supreme Court ruling (German)
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Competitiveness
The reform's efficiency is mostly gauged in a cautious and skeptical way. The fear, voiced mainly by trade associations, that the German economy's competitiveness would be impeded considerably, has ostendibly not come true. Inside the European Single Market, all non-harmonised taxes may have the problem of causing an investment shift to other countries, therefore causing a competition among the countries for low taxes. This is also true for the taxes that were altered by the ecologic tax reform. This problem could only be remedied by EU-wide regulations; however, such regulations are not planned as of yet.
[edit] Guidance capacity
Eine deutliche Lenkungswirkung in Richtung auf die erwünschten Investitionen in neue, umweltverträgliche Technologien lässt sich bisher jedoch allenfalls in eng umgrenzten Teilbereichen beobachten, so zum Beispiel in Gestalt einer erhöhten Nachfrage nach verbrauchsreduzierten Pkw. Die weit reichenden Ausnahmeregelungen für energieintensive Industriezweige bewahren diese zwar vor Kostensteigerungen, bieten jedoch keinen Anreiz für Modernisierungsinvestitionen oder technische Neuentwicklung zudem fehlende innovation.
[edit] Zweckbindung
Eine weitere Problematik liegt darin, dass die Steuer politisch nicht allein mit ihrer ökologischen Lenkungswirkung begründet wurde, sondern ein Zusammenhang mit der gesetzlich verordneten Senkung von Sozialversicherungsbeiträgen hergestellt wurde, deren erhoffte belebende Wirkung auf den Arbeitsmarkt ausgeblieben ist. Neben allgemeinen steuersystematischen Bedenken gegen derartige Zweckbindungen spricht gegen diese Verbindung der Umstand, dass das Steueraufkommen infolge der ökologischen Steuerreform tendenziell sinken muss, wenn die gewünschte Wirkung erzielt wird, während der Finanzbedarf der Sozialversicherungen tendenziell steigt und daher nicht dauerhaft aus diesem Teil des Steueraufkommens gedeckt werden kann.
[edit] Effizienz
In der ökonomischen Theorie geht man allgemein davon aus, dass steuerliche Lösungen zur Internalisierung externer Effekte im Bereich Umweltschutz Zertifikatlösungen unterlegen sind. So wird eine Emissionsrechtelösung auf Basis des Coase-Theorems zumeist als effizienter bewertet.
[edit] Soziale Gerechtigkeit
Indirekte Steuern wirken regressiv, dass heißt, sie treffen Personen mit kleinen Einkommen relativ stärker als Personen mit hohen Einkommen. Ein ökologisches Steuersystem wird daher häufig als sozial ungerecht aufgefasst.
[edit] Inflationsabhängigkeit
Anpassungen von Steuern an wechselnde Inflationsraten sind in der Realität häufig mit Problemen verbunden. Änderungen der Steuersätze sind häufig mit großem politischen Aufwand verbunden. Die Inflationsrate hingegen kann sich auch vergleichsweise schnell ändern.
[edit] Fazit
Ökosteuern gelten als effektives Instrument zur Internalisierung von Umweltverschmutzung. Jedoch sind theoretische Mängel zu verzeichnen, die die Effizienz des Systems teilweise nicht unerheblich beeinträchtigen. Zudem sind Alternativen vorhanden, gerade im Bereich von Emissionsrechten.
[edit] Siehe auch
Umweltsteuer, Energiesteuer
[edit] Weblinks
Oekosteuer Oekosteuer en:Green tax shift
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