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Last year, France introduced a system known as "bonus-malus." Under the scheme, people who buy gas guzzlers have to pay a €200 – €2600 penalty. Consumers option for something more "environmentally friendly" get a €200 – €1,000 bonus. Automotive News [sub] reports Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo plans to "amplify" the program. Car buyers who purchase "extremely polluting" vehicles will soon pay an additional annual fee. As in carbon tax. Borloo didn't say when he plans to start the extortion new program. But here's the best part: "Borloo has said in the past that the system of penalties and rewards applied to vehicles could be extended to other products such as electronic goods." Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!
20 Comments on “France Introduces Annual Carbon Tax on Cars, Etc....”
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France has already descended down the slippery slope of ultrataxation with its foot on the gas pedal. Is this different? No. Is it more? Yes.
But how many will actually pay these taxes, and not find a tax loophole? It is my understanding that Europeans spend tons and tons of their own intellectual capital finding creative ways to get around the taxes.
They have to pay for their universal, free childcare somehow.
I think you’re missing the point Justin. French buyers are free to choose whether or not to select a vehicle based on many operating costs. The societal cost is just one. In other European countries registration fees are tied, in part, to engine displacement. In others, to carbon footprint. And of course there is always value added and environmental taxes. Most of these can be mitigated based on an intelligent vehicle choice, friendlier on the pocket and the planet. A “gas-guzzler” tax is therefore one of many worthwhile disincentives for bad behavior while simultaneously helping to fund rewards for responsible bahavior.
Taxing externalities is something will U.S. will have to eventually come to, no matter how much they make fun of Europeans.
The idea that somehow, you’re “entitled” to have everybody else pay, in $$ and health effects, to the pollution you generate nothing less than a perversion of the American ideals of freedom by selfish consumerism.
I’m a small government type of person, but on the issue of externalities, I haven’t seen any other way of dealing with them other than government taxation. Now, if only the French used this to reduce taxes that need reducing, it’d be great. But I don’t have much hope for that.
While I am all for incentives to buy fuel efficient cars, and even discouragement for the purchase of a guzzler, I am not for a yearly tax based on engine displacement. There is already an expensive and effective “carbon tax” in france. It is called the TIPP (Taxe Interieur de Produits Petrolieres). I am pretty sure I don’t have to translate that. What it is, is the gas tax.
The gas tax is pretty high here, something about near 70-80 percent (can some one back me up, I haven’t checked my sources). This is essentially a direct tax on carbon. An engine displacement tax, is a luxury tax, but not a carbon tax.
I for one love cars, but don’t use one daily, I bike to work and shopping is just across the street. If I wanted to buy an Audi RS6 and take it out the weekend, I’d be emitting less CO2 than a bonhomme driving his Clio 150km a day.
I’ve got a middle class salary, that tax has pretty much put the big motor out of my range. It is not a carbon tax, but a sneaky way of taxing our German neighbors.
AKM: Taxing externalities is something will U.S. will have to eventually come to, no matter how much they make fun of Europeans.
Please…this isn’t about taxing externalities. It’s about taxing imported vehicles, because most of the heavier, more powerful vehicles are German or British in origin. This tax is nothing more than an attempt to bolster the French auto industry.
AKM: The idea that somehow, you’re “entitled” to have everybody else pay, in $$ and health effects, to the pollution you generate nothing less than a perversion of the American ideals of freedom by selfish consumerism.
And yet, amazingly enough, people are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. So much for the “externalities.”
And a big part of that is because of the tremendous advance in the standard of living brought about the wealth generated by the auto industry and the widespread availability of affordable energy. Which is generated largely by petroleum, although the French rely heavily on nuclear power for electric generation.
I think people need a history lesson of what life was like in the “good old days,” when people relied on horses (which produce their own emissions) for transportation and dirty wood and coal for transportation and heating. No carbon footprint, no cars, no fast food…and most people were lucky to live to age 60. Sounds like a real paradise. But at least no one had to worry about the “externalties” caused by petroleum use.
In my opinion, CO2-based taxation is actually a good thing. When Finland changed displacement tax into CO2, most cars became a lot cheaper. Diesel models now actually cost less than gasoline powered cars. The annual road tax will also change into CO2-based in 2010 or so, and it will be lower on most cars also.
Of course, some vehicles are more expensive now: the Escalade went from 110000e to 134000e, and Ferrari prices rose by 100000e. But with gas costing over 1.5e/liter (9-10 dollars per gallon), nobody could afford to drive an Escalade anyway.
What the article fails to mention is that the existing system has been so successful in changing the buying habits of the French, that is actually estimated that it will cost the French goverment 200M Euros this year!
Geeber: AKM: The idea that somehow, you’re “entitled” to have everybody else pay, in $$ and health effects, to the pollution you generate nothing less than a perversion of the American ideals of freedom by selfish consumerism.
And yet, amazingly enough, people are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. So much for the “externalities.”
The longer, healthier lives come first from sanitation, and second from things like better nutrition, vaccinations, antibiotics, etc. If it weren’t for efforts to deal with externalities, we (and Europe) would be as polluted as China, where pollution kills 100s of thousands annually.
The US has lost about 4,000 lives and an order of magnitude more have been maimed due to the externality of adventurism in Iraq. And if fish die out due to acidification of the ocean from carbon dioxide, a lot of people will probably starve.
David Holzman: The longer, healthier lives come first from sanitation, and second from things like better nutrition, vaccinations, antibiotics, etc.
All of which cost money. Nutritious food that is available all year; vaccinations and antibiotics that cost money to develop, buy and dispense; and improved standards of trash disposal, personal hygiene and home cleanliness have been LUXURIES for most of mankind’s history.
It is only because of the widespread prosperity generated by our fossil-fuel based economy – of which the automobile industry has been the leader – that you and others can afford to take these luxuries for granted, and assume that everyone is entitled to them. That is not the way it has been throughout history.
Longer lifespans for most people are the direct result of the prosperity and higher living standards made possible by this petroleum-based economy.
David Holzman: If it weren’t for efforts to deal with externalities, we (and Europe) would be as polluted as China, where pollution kills 100s of thousands annually.
But we have dealt with them – pollution is declining in the U.S. and Europe. People in the West are living longer, happier lives than ever before.
The French tax that is the subject of this article is really about protecting and bolstering the French auto industry, not dealing with “externalities.”
David Holzman: The US has lost about 4,000 lives and an order of magnitude more have been maimed due to the externality of adventurism in Iraq.
That’s pursuing the wrong avenue for foreign policy, not an indictment of reliance on petroleum. There is no proof that Hussein didn’t want to sell us his oil – remember, HE wanted the sanctions removed. We didn’t have to go to war to maintain oil supplies.
I don’t have an AN sub, so I can’t read that article, but Le Monde (it’s only in French), is saying that it’ll only be on vehicles that spew >250g/km CO2, which according to the president of the French Automobile Constructors Lobby Group “shouldn’t bother the french manufacturers too much. Even on their upper range models (eat it BMW, Audi and Merc) they make great strides to limit the CO2.”
It seems as if the 100% European gas taxes might be having the specified effect (reducing consumption) but not the desired effect (raising money). With several nations seemingly on the edge of revolution over fuel costs, with port and city blockades, the suits in power will do what any good revolutionary leaders would do and scapegoat the rich.
In the words of the great Jack Kemp
“If you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less of something, tax it.”
This plan makes perfect sense and I think America should consider it.
cretinx: “If you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less of something, tax it.”
This plan makes perfect sense and I think America should consider it.
There’s one problem here – the real goal of this proposed tax is to bolster the French automobile industry.
Something similar for America (i.e., a measure that bolsters the American auto industry) would have to change the tax policy to encourage people to buy pickups and SUVs.
Don’t the suits in power represent the rich first and foremost? I thought the suits in power often came from the rich and powerful – or is there another social class I was not familiar with?
The switch to taxing cars based on carbon emissions rather than engine displacement has happened broadly across Europe, not just in France but in many other countries most of whom don’t have a car industry.
The possible benefit to PSA and Renault is a nice bonus from the French point of view not the raison d’etre of this law. There are plenty of other manufacturers making small cars in Europe who are just as well placed to benefit from this change.
hal: The possible benefit to PSA and Renault is a nice bonus from the French point of view not the raison d’etre of this law.
Sure…
hal: There are plenty of other manufacturers making small cars in Europe who are just as well placed to benefit from this change.
And, amazingly enough, the manufacturers who will be hurt are largely located in Germany and Great Britain.