Brussels, 02/08/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Commission has launched a consultation till 30 September on reform of excise taxes on commercial diesel. The Commission believes that the different national taxes were “excessive” and submitted a document to the interested parties, describing the current tax situation in Member States and providing indications of possible reform. The consultation involves road hauliers, the car industry, oil industry, companies that provide motorway services, as well as the railways. Its results will be used to draw up a Commission report expected out at the beginning of 2007 and which could be accompanied by a legislative proposal.
Excise taxes in Member States on 1000 litres of fuel vary from between €302-782 and are above €400 in six Member States. The 2003/96/EC directive on energy product taxes defined minimum thresholds at €302 for diesel (€330 from 2010) and €359 for led-free petrol. The Commission is afraid that “these tax differences will lead international road hauliers to proceed to a kind of fiscal planning”, which would create tax distortions when it came to companies that did not have the same benefits. It points out that in “Luxembourg” consummation of diesel was “4200 litres” per head of the population whereas in other Member States it was “less than 750 litres”.
Faced with such a situation, the Commission is proposing three options: 1) to not interfere at a European level and not change the situation; 2) put the legislative proposal devised in 2002 back on the table and which had subsequently been withdrawn (EUROPE 8588), which suggested total harmonisation of excise on commercial diesel through the setting of a single rate of €400 per 1000 litres of fuel in 2018; 3) approximation of national excise rates within a fluctuating band defined at a Community level and whose scale would decline by stages to reach €100 in 2010. With regard to this last option, the Commission is proposing to keep the minimum levels of taxation in the directive until 2012 (two Member States are similarly expected to reduce their levels) and from 2013 to index link the rate of inflation or keep it stable but with a ceiling on rates that is higher than the current rate.