General Discussion

The price here used to be just the price of the gasoline plus the so-called "mineral oil tax." But then the government tacked on Value-Added Tax to the whole package: not just VAT on the gasoline, but VAT on the mineral oil tax as well. The German Constitution expressly forbids any and all double taxation (it seems the Germans did that to a certain ethnic group here about 90 years ago, and the framers of the post-war constitution wanted to make sure it could never happen again). I even asked one of our neighbors who is a judge on the German tax court who wrote his doctorate on double taxation. He said the VAT of the gas tax is absolutely unconstitutional, but so far no one has considered it worthwhile to launch a class action suit for the few Euros extra it costs the people every time they go to the pump. Years ago, a wealth tax was proposed in Germany, and their Supreme Court struck it down instantly, noting that it constituted an unconstitutional double taxation. Of course, here, the maximum tax bracket of 47% (42% plus 5% supplement) kicks in at under $100,000, so the government already takes a serious bite out of people's incomes.