Quote:
Originally Posted by zap
If the goal is to reduce the size of vehicles on us roads, higher fuel taxes can be effective if revenue goes to improving highways, bridges, etc. Germany was disciplined in allocating funds and the roads superb. Not sure if that (fiscal discipline) is still the case.
The USA and state governments.......
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Germany has (sorts of) taxed emissions and fuel usage by upping the tax on fuel. The price of each liter of gas we buy contains 65.45 ct of tax, for diesel it is at 47.04 ct. That ammounts to roughly 2,60$/2$ per gallon of fuel.
As of emissions, there are EU regulations which will put your car into an "emission class" which will affect what annual tax you have to pay for your car. It is also tied to the cubic inch (ccm for us metric fellas).
Each car is taxed at 6,76 Euro up to 25,36 Euro/100cm³, depending on what Euro Class the car is rated. The rating is what was cheated about in the softare of several car maufacturers. (It is noteable that german VW/Audi owners were *not* eligible for any refund - as car manufacturers represent a significant part of the countries industries, and are happy to exaggerate on this even more, they have the ear of our ministry of transport and the chancellor very much. Technically, what they did would qualify for "assisntance in tax fraud" which is usually not a crime taken easily, but there you are...)
There is no way of evading those taxes. We *do* have a system where cars + their maintenance (including fuel) can be given by companies to employees and be claimed against taxes that comany would have to pay, which would qualify as a tax evasion scheme if one looked closely, but (see above).
In Germany, taxes generally can *not* be put aside for a special purpose, so the mineral oil tax and the car tax can't go directly to infrastructure. Of course, a certain balance is maintained.
As of the infrastructure, that has been deteriorating in the last 2 decades, especially in the "old" federal states (non-DDR) due to lack of funds and the unavoidable public services f*up. Autobahns and main roads ("Bundesstrassen") are responsibility of the state, lesser roads are responsibility of the cities or communes, who often are tight.
Road maintenance is tricky - service it every 10 years for a certain ammount of €, or let it rot and do the necessary minimum/emergency repairs every 30 years for a comparably higher price - the policy has been the latter, recently. It shifts cost to the 5rd election period in the future...
Currently, there is a debate about privatising Autobahns, some already are. The public debate whether that is a good thing or not is going on.