Environmentally related taxes by economic activity. Quality report for the 2017 data collection. Country: Germany Date:

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1 Environmentally related taxes by economic activity Quality report for the 2017 data collection Country: Germany Date: Contact person: Heike Becker, Please fill in this template and return it via EDAMIS web portal by 30 September Text in black is supposed to remain, while text in blue italics is for information and guidance, and it is not to be retained in the final report. Please write in English. Some sections are pre-filled for your convenience. The most important and longest section for you to complete relates to comparability and coherence of ETEA data. In this section, you are requested to describe how the environmental tax statistics for your country are compiled. Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 in article 7 requires that Member States shall provide the Commission with a report on the quality of the data transmitted. The quality criteria as referred to in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 shall be applied. Those quality criteria are: relevance, accuracy, timeliness, punctuality, accessibility and clarity, comparability and coherence. Relevance The European Parliament and Council decided environmentally related taxes by economic activity shall be provided, through Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental accounts adopted on 6 July These environmentally related taxes are an important policy instrument to influence economic behaviour by getting the prices right. These statistics are consistent with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA-CF) adopted the United Nations Statistical Commission as a world-level statistical standard in March A national quality report is available for environmental economic accounts as a whole, not for environmental taxes alone. See: chnungen/ugr.pdf? blob=publicationfile 1

2 Accuracy Data for the years 2013 to 2014 have been revised because the data from the NA (IOT) have been updated due to changes in the energy data. The energy taxes include the nuclear fuel tax. This tax was declared unconstitutional in June Contributions will be repaid to the corporations. This year, the Federal Ministry of Finance was not able to provide us information which is needed to calculate the data for the motor vehicle tax in time. Accordingly, only the air traffic tax is provided in the questionnaire s part Transport tax. Data on motor vehicle tax will be given later as soon as the information from the Ministry is available. Pollution and resource taxes are not included in our data. This is not directly a deficiency but rather a definition problem. The acreage fees and mining royalties (to be paid for the exploration and extraction of mineral resources according to Article 30 and 31 of the German Federal Mining Act) are not included in the NTL. Thus, they are by definition no resource tax. The "Hunt tax and Fishing tax" (incl. in NTL) does not refer to a concrete extraction of a specific resource but is a royalty to be paid to hunt or fish in a specific area. It is calculated as a certain percentage of the hunting lease. Thus, it is not based on a physical unit (or a proxy of a physical unit) of something that has a proven, specific negative impact on the environment. Thus, it is no resource tax. We envisage clarification in cooperation with the National Accounts in the near future. Timeliness and punctuality The Regulation requires environmentally related taxes to be provided for the first time on 30 September Germany transmitted the data to Eurostat on [insert the date], covering the years Results for 2015 are partly preliminary. National publications will be made when final results are available. Accessibility and clarity Data will be made available on Eurostat s web site as soon as possible after checking. National Publication: Aggregated tax data is published on an annual basis while taxes by economic activities have been published for 2016 (reference year 2014). The publication Economy and Use of Environmental Resources Tables on Environmental-Economic Accounting chapter 9 includes tables on Environmental Taxes. Aggregated data on taxes by economic activities are included in this chapter. 2

3 Comparability and coherence a) Grundsteuer (property tax): This tax must not be included in environmental taxes at all. It is not an environmental (resource) tax as it is attached to a standard value ("Einheitswert") of the property (incl. building). It is not designed and not suitable to influence land use. Its tax base therefore is not "a physical unit (or a proxy of a physical unit) of something that has a proven, specific negative impact on the environment..." This tax is now recoded 'RP' in the NTL. b) Kernbrennstoffsteuer (nuclear fuel tax): should be included in energy taxes instead of pollution taxes as it is close to other energy taxes like mineral oil tax or electricity tax. Nevertheless, this tax was declared unconstitutional in June Contributions will be repaid to the corporations. c) Emission permits: should be included in energy taxes instead of pollution taxes following the instructions of the questionnaire: "The CO 2 taxes are included under energy taxes rather than under pollution taxes." (see notes point 3.2). This tax is now recoded 'E' in the NTL. We review the list of environmental taxes for completeness every year. Tax changes are annually assessed before starting the calculations. In case there are relevant changes the calculations are adjusted. In the case of new taxes, we check the relevance and accuracy of the tax by cooperation and exchanging with experts for the NA. 1. Energy taxes Included are energy tax (formerly: mineral oil tax), electricity tax, nuclear fuel tax, and emission permits. For each of these taxes we use a separate method to allocate the tax revenues to tax payers. For calculations of energy and electricity tax EEA (environmental economic accounts) and NA cooperate as follows: EEA provide physical data on energy use by the categories private households and Other users. Based on these data environmental tax revenues are allocated within SUTs as part of product taxes. Distribution for 2015 follows the 2014 structures as data for 2015 were not available in time. That is why 2015 results are preliminary and may be revised in the 2018 data collection. Nuclear fuel tax revenues are completely allocated to NACE category D 35. Emission permits: Allocation according to NA calculations based on data from the Deutsche Emissionshandelsstelle (DEHST, German Emissions Trading Authority). DEHST provide detailed data on emission trading by industries (NACE). Calculation of tax revenue = Number of emission trading permits returned * average price 3

4 2. Transport Taxes Included are: motor vehicle tax and air traffic tax For each of these taxes we use a separate method to allocate the tax revenues to tax payers. Motor vehicle tax: For motor vehicle taxes a completely new calculation tool were developed in 2013 (first mandatory data transmission). Motor vehicle taxes have to be paid annually depending on different characteristics (pollutant class, cubic capacity, CO2 emissions, permissible gross laden weight, trailer weight, etc.) for different kinds of vehicles (passenger cars, lorries, trucks, light commercial vehicles, trailer, motor cycles, etc.). The calculation tool combines the detailed data on tax revenues for different kinds of vehicles and different classes of tax characteristics as provided by the Federal Ministry of Finance, and the detailed data by kind of vehicles, vehicle characteristics, and 23 owner groups specially compiled by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (Kraftfahrtbundesamt KBA) for EEA-purposes. These data include tax exemptions where relevant. As final step tax data calculated for the different kinds of vehicles are transformed from the 23 owner groups into A*64 classification using output data by industries from NA. For data calculation according to the economic sectors, information from the business statistics motor vehicle tax of the Federal Ministry of Finance is needed. This year, the information is not available in time. Immediately after we will have received the appropriate information, we will hand in the data on the motor vehicle tax. Air traffic tax: Air traffic tax is paid by passengers only. Distribution is made according to the use structure in SUTs of goods and services for passenger air traffic. Air traffic tax was introduced in Distribution for 2012 follows the previous year s structures as data are not available in time. That is why results are preliminary and may be revised in next year s data collection. Taxes were assessed in detail whether taxes paid by non-residents are relevant or not. The result was that the only important aspect is fuel tourism in road transport. From energy accounts (within EEA) the respective quantities used by non-residents are available separately for petrol and diesel. Estimates are based on these numbers multiplied with the average tax rates for the different kinds of fuels. Data for the most recent year is required for t+21 months when some basic data (e.g. SUT for the NACE breakdown) may not be available. 4

5 In t+21 months SUTs for year t are not available. Where necessary we use the distribution of SUTs of t-1 year for our estimations. For the time being we do not plan to recalculate our tax data for the years before The main reason is lack of personnel capacities. Percentage of cells which were not filled but should have been ( not available ) in the transmission to Eurostat: 0.0%. Other assessments and quality reports: A national quality report is available for environmental economic accounts as a whole, not for environmental taxes alone. See: amtrechnungen/ugr.pdf? blob=publicationfile 5