Company car turnaround?
Greens want to remove the privilege - because of the successor to the 9-euro ticket
Created: 08/03/2022, 05:35
By: Jens Kiffmeier
Bus and train instead of company cars: The Greens want to extend the 9-euro ticket.
To finance them, they want to eliminate tax privileges for drivers.
With success?
Berlin – The call for a new relief package remains: With a new proposal, the Greens have now fueled the debate about extending the 9-euro ticket.
The leader of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Katharina Dröge, is pushing for a permanently cheap monthly ticket for local public transport beyond August.
In order to be able to finance the relief in the energy crisis, the Greens proposed the deletion of the company car privilege.
"That would be positive for climate protection and justice in two senses," said Dröge to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
It remains to be seen whether she will win a majority for the proposal in the Bundestag and in the federal government.
Relief package 2022: Company car privilege is to be dropped for the extension of the 9-euro ticket
In politics, the 9-euro ticket is considered a success in the 2022 relief package, with which the traffic light coalition wants to cushion the currently high energy costs for fuel, gas and electricity.
Since the beginning of June, Germans have been able to travel on public transport buses and trains nationwide.
However, the promotion is limited in time.
Citizens can only buy the monthly ticket in August.
After that it loses its validity.
Thinking about extending the 9-euro ticket: Green Party leader Katharina Dröge.
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
However, a dispute about an extension of the campaign and about alternatives has been raging for weeks.
The left in particular is putting a lot of pressure on.
But funding has recently seemed difficult.
That's why the Greens are now pushing ahead with the abolition of tax privileges for company cars.
In Germany, for example, owners only have to pay tax on their company car at a flat rate of one percent of the list price as a benefit in kind – instead of buying the car from their fully taxed income.
Conversely, the companies can deduct the acquisition costs for the car for tax purposes.
But Dröge wants to put an end to the gift from the Treasury, which mainly reaches high earners, and prefers to divert the tax money into a 9-euro ticket.
It remains to be seen whether the abolition of the tax privilege will be sufficient.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) in particular is likely to get in the way.
After the federal government had already torn a billion-dollar hole in the federal budget with the 2022 relief package, which, in addition to the 9-euro ticket, also includes a fuel discount, a flat-rate energy price, a Hartz IV surcharge and a child bonus, Lindner recently resisted all other demands a new relief package.
New relief package: Without the federal government, Lower Saxony wants to start its own 9-euro ticket in northern Germany
Irrespective of this, the call for an extension of the 9-euro ticket is not going away.
So there could also be a smaller solution following the previous ticket.
Lower Saxony was open to creating a cheap network ticket, at least within northern Germany.
"If a nationwide ticket cannot be implemented, the five northern German federal states could alternatively set something up," the Lower Saxony state transport ministry said in a statement.
Gas crisis in Germany: Federal Network Agency registers increased need for advice - is there a third relief package?
In any case, consumers in Germany are still very interested in further relief.
In view of the galloping energy prices, they are worried about financial hardship.
According to the Federal Network Agency, the need for advice has increased enormously.
As can be seen from its new consumer radar, the authority registered almost 14,300 inquiries from January to the end of June this year.
That was 30 percent more than in the same period last year.
It was said that this could clearly be traced back to the gas crisis in Germany.
