I was kinda waiting for this…..the new government (the righty crowd)….had the transportation chief come out last week....and announce they are renewing a review of the introduction of road tolls in German autobahns. About twelve hours later...he came out and said it was a mis-statement and backtracked.
This is one of those ideas that revenue guys have been hyping on for a decade now. They know the invention of new methods of collecting taxes has to be extended....and this is the best “hidden” method they know of. The majority of Germans though....are against it.
About ten years ago…..the new government came in (the lefty crowd)….and decided that folks in trucks ought to pay a road toll and then determined that a technology concept of “black boxes” and satellites would be the answer. Naturally, this answer left the door open for car inclusion later.
So the boys jumped in….got around six major companies involved and figured in eighteen months they could crank up this massive program across the whole nation. The simple deal? You had a card that you “charged” up at some gas station ATM-like machine. You put the card into a “black box” within the truck….that had antenna. As the truck passed under a steel structure on the autobahn….it reads the account and then deducts the money from the account.
How far apart are these structures? It could be five miles….it could twenty miles. Each one is a different charge. You could enter one end of a town like Frankfurt….travel the entire distance on the autobahn to the other end…and never cross a single one of these readers. In my case, if I take the long route on the autobahn….I will pass one reader before I get to the base. The likely charge? Unknown at this point, but I’d guess on 50 cents….so it’d likely run a buck a day to drive quickly to work.
This charge….the “maut”….is an amusing subject. If you ask Germans who pays the charge…they tell you the trucker. Then you ask if the trucker assumes the entire burden…or passes it along to the consumer buying the item off the truck? Then they start to realize that they quietly pass this charge or tax themselves.
The selling point is that other nations that transit Germany….pay their fair share….and that’s all foreign income unrelated to Germany.
There are folks who oppose this entire idea….like the German Federation of Taxpayers….who referred to this road toll idea as "a scam."
The current selling point on this deal is that foreign cars transit the country….on vacation or business….and they could improve the current tax revenue bucket by 20 percent.
Having been in Germany for fifteen years….I can tell you a simple fact….folks will work hard to avoid paying this tax. If they find that it costs $40 a month to use the autobahn to drive to work….they will find the county or city roads to avoid the scam….and crowd up the current access roads by two hundred percent. The advantage of using the fee? Out the back door rather quickly.
Would I pay the $1 a day? I laughed as I considered this idea. I would burn up an extra twenty minutes a day if I avoid the autobahn, and probably burn an extra three gallons of gas per week….but you have to analyze this problem carefully. I work with people who would have to transit five of these readers….and maybe pay $40 a week….which would be a silly expense.
Would the current gas tax be deleted? No….the odds are zero on that. The government guy’s won’t even discuss that idea. So basically….an entire new tax would be levied across German society….emptying out another $500 a year or more….on the common guy. The bulk of folks won’t be getting a pay raise…just like last year….so they are all digging in and tossing more money to the government.
So, everyone is hoping the mis-statement made....was just that...and that these idiots won't bring this up again. My guess? Give it six months....and it'll be brought up again....just when they need more taxes.
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