Car taxation is both undeniably complicated and evidently impactful. Its ‘carrot and stick’ incentivisation is one of the main tools governments are using to drive the transition to electromobility while also maintaining fiscal balance. However, there is not one single approach, with a wide range of car tax recipes employed across the continent.
These taxes can now be directly compared through Transport & Environment’s Good Tax Guide. This comprehensive work covers the seven main forms of taxation applied to corporate and private vehicles across 31 European countries. With the aid of 33 national collaborators, a tax burden was calculated for the same vehicles across all countries to uncover which systems tax more, less, and differently. The tax comparisons have been updated for 2024 taxation and made available through an online dashboard Good Tax Guide 2024. This tax tool allows users to select the countries and taxes of particular interest.
In this webinar we will hear from the Good Tax Guide creators what they discovered about which countries tax the most and the least, which countries have the strongest incentives for electromobility and which countries have particularly innovative policies. We will also hear from tax researchers about the future of car taxation and the new policies they would like to see implemented. Finally, we will hear from governments themselves about the objectives their tax systems aim to achieve, whether they are succeeding, and how their tax systems are evolving.
We welcome your attendance and participation in this webinar.
Programme and presentations
Introductory words by Stef Cornelis, Director of Electric Fleets Programme at T&E
Session 1: How do systems of national car taxation compare? 14:00-14:20
● Arnau Oliver Antich presented the headline findings from the Good Tax Guide 2024 update. Presentation
Session 2: What should the future of car taxation look like? 14:20-15:10
● James Nix (Transport & Environment) looked at weight taxation and other fiscal approaches to ‘right-sizing’. Presentation
● Johann Beckford (Green Alliance) presented road charging and other fiscal approaches levied on car usage. Presentation.
- Marie Chéron (Transport & Environment) talked about targetted subsidies with a special focus on social leasing in France. Presentation
● Florian Peiseler (Forum Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft) explained how benefit-in-kind taxation for company cars can be modernised. Presentation
Session 3: How are finance ministries thinking about car taxation? 15:10-16:00
● A discussion with Matthias Ofner (Federal Ministry of Finance, Austria), Jean-Baptiste Traversa (Federal Public Service Finance, Belgium), and Markus Teräväinen (Ministry of Finance, Finland) including audience question & answer.
Watch the recording: