If you follow the German news today (Sat), there's this meeting to conclude a CDU-SPD agreement set for Monday. The topic? Doubling of taxes on airline tickets.....to save the climate (you have to trust them on this).
The deal as presented by the news folks is that domestic flight tickets would all be doubled on taxes. Right now....it's 7.38 Euro per ticket. So it'd rise up to around 15 Euro with this plan.
In fact, there's a hook to the discussion.....to force you into using rail service for the shorter trips....the tax would be tripled for trips of 400 km or less.
Would it influence or change patterns? You generally have to laugh. If you live in Munich and have a 2-day business trip required for Berlin, most people who have valuable time....will fly up instead of spending four hours on a train. A Stuttgart businessman needing a six-hour meeting in Hamburg? Same story....it's going to be a airline ticket instead of a train situation.
So this doubling of the tax is really to fill the government pocket and pay for increasing costs and more gifts? Yes....that's the simple side of this story. You can appear to pro-environmental and pushing people to change.....while people can reflect upon the slight tax change and just accept it as a cost of living thing.
The odds that the tax will escalate? There's some belief that the Green Party will do well in the 2021 national election, and if that occurs....with them as either the lead-party or partner-party.....I would go and suggest that the ticket tax will escalate from the 15-Euro level to 30-Euro. But again, it'll be seen as a cost of living situation and just be accepted once again.
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