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Gas station in Germany (symbol image)
Photo: Rolf Poss / imago images/Rolf Poss
The price level at the petrol stations is currently causing considerable annoyance among German motorists.
The federal government wants to counteract this with tax relief.
But that could, at least according to the operators, cause trouble of a different kind, at least in the short term.
Due to the tax cuts on fuel at the beginning of June, petrol stations are warning of bottlenecks at the pumps.
"A high demand from motorists will meet a low supply," said the chairman of the Federal Association of Free Gas Stations, Duraid El Obeid, the "Rheinische Post".
The energy tax will decrease by 14.04 cents per liter on diesel and 29.55 cents per liter on petrol on June 1st.
The sharp reduction in energy taxes poses "a double challenge" for gas station companies, said the general manager of the Fuels and Energy Association (En2X), Christian Küchen, of the newspaper.
On the one hand, they would try to reduce their stocks by June 1st in order to be able to sell as little highly taxed fuel as possible cheaper from June 1st.
On the other hand, it is to be expected that motorists will drive to the petrol pumps en masse from June 1 of all times to fill up empty tanks.
"Therefore, temporary bottlenecks at the stations cannot be completely ruled out," he says.
Tip: It is best not to run the tank completely empty
The problem lies in a special feature of tax law.
The energy tax on fuel is levied at the refineries and tank farms and not at the gas stations themselves. Every liter of diesel that the gas stations have delivered before June 1 costs them 14 cents more than from June 1, every liter of premium petrol costs almost 30 cents more.
From June onwards, however, significantly lower sales prices can be expected, regardless of what the goods cost when they were purchased.
The head of the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia, Wolfgang Schuldzinski, advised: "Because bottlenecks are imminent on June 1, nobody should run their tank almost completely empty before then."
jok/AFP
