[HN Gopher] Austria to introduce new carbon tax next year
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Austria to introduce new carbon tax next year
Author : geox
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-10-03 18:54 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| option wrote:
| I wish G7,G20 or the whole UN adapt carbon tax. I am afraid that
| it is something doomed to fail if adapted by individual nations
| (especially by those who aren't polluting much by themselves).
|
| If adapted by the whole world it would be such a wonderful thing
| both for environment and economies because it would incentivize
| development and adoption of new clean tech. Because otherwise
| people would simply "outsource" the pollution which is, of
| course, a ridiculous concept.
| extropy wrote:
| IMO not practical and not needed, just add an import duty from
| countries without carbon tax to price in the externalities. And
| the market will figure it out.
|
| The duty can be a flat rate or an average emissions per
| economic output for the country.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I'm all in regarding this but I see a big issue regarding
| corruption and nepotism.
|
| For instance, it does not say that in TFA, but it is implied
| that some sort of fund would have to be created to manage and
| distribute all that new money. Let's consider that, as a
| natural consequence, a big part of that money goes to buying
| carbon credits/offsets; that's a billion euro bill that is
| going to make "the right person" very rich, very fast.
|
| And before one says something like "but we are not like that",
| just remember Austria just came out of a huge political crisis
| a few years ago. Imagine what would happen to this money in
| other least developed countries.
|
| A possible solution would be to keep things as democratic and
| transparent as they could possibly be.
| mlinksva wrote:
| Such coordination would be great, but carbon taxes aren't
| doomed to fail without it. I'd guess that every country has
| taxes that are worse for competitiveness than a carbon tax, and
| can be displaced. Additionally, carbon border adjustments can
| partially impose a carbon tax on producers in countries that
| won't do it themselves.
| option wrote:
| Agree, unfortunate such coordination is not going to happen.
| Carbon border adjustments is a great idea which could make
| carbon taxes work.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| Basically a free money transfer from developed countries to
| corrupt shithole countries? Big no no
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Tithes must be paid. Those who sin more must pay more in their
| confessionals.
| nemo44x wrote:
| That will add about $300 to an overseas first/business class
| ticket. About $90 for economy.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Funds collected will be refunded and not kept by the government:
|
| > _Each resident in Austria will get an annual reimbursement,
| with the exact amount determined by where they live to ensure
| those in rural regions without good public transport don't lose
| out. Children are entitled to half their parents' amount -- so a
| family of two adults and two children in Vienna could expect to
| get 300 euros ($358) for example._
|
| While the term "tax" is used proverbially, if the government does
| not keep the money, it is actually a tax?
|
| This was a constitutional question in Canada, and the majority of
| the Supreme Court ruled that it was not:
|
| > _As a final matter, the fuel and excess emission charges
| imposed by the GGPPA have a sufficient nexus with the regulatory
| scheme to be considered constitutionally valid regulatory
| charges. To be a regulatory charge, as opposed to a tax, a
| governmental levy with the characteristics of a tax must be
| connected to a regulatory scheme. The first step is to identify
| the existence of a relevant regulatory scheme; if such a scheme
| is found to exist, the second step is to establish a relationship
| between the charge and the scheme itself. Influencing behaviour
| is a valid purpose for a regulatory charge and regulatory charges
| need not reflect the cost of the scheme. The amount of a
| regulatory charge whose purpose is to alter behaviour is set at a
| level designed to proscribe, prohibit, or lend preference to a
| behaviour. Limiting such a charge to the recovery of costs would
| be incompatible with the design of a scheme of this nature. Nor
| must the revenues that are collected be used to further the
| purposes of the regulatory scheme. Rather, the required nexus
| with the scheme will exist where the charges themselves have a
| regulatory purpose. There is ample evidence that the fuel and
| excess emission charges imposed by Parts 1 and 2 of the GGPPA
| have a regulatory purpose. They cannot be characterized as taxes;
| rather, they are regulatory charges whose purpose is to advance
| the GGPPA's regulatory purpose by altering behaviour._
|
| [...]
|
| > _[219] In the instant case, there is ample evidence that the
| fuel and excess emission charges imposed by Parts 1 and 2 of the
| GGPPA have a regulatory purpose. Ontario does not assert, nor
| would such an assertion be supportable, that the levies in this
| case amount to disguised taxation. The GGPPA as a whole is
| directed to establishing minimum national standards of GHG price
| stringency to reduce GHG emissions, not to the generation of
| revenue. As Richards C.J.S. aptly observed, the GGPPA "could
| fully accomplish its objectives . . . without raising a cent":
| para. 87. This is true of both Part 1 and Part 2. The levies
| imposed by Parts 1 and 2 of the GGPPA cannot be characterized as
| taxes; rather, they are regulatory charges whose purpose is to
| advance the GGPPA's regulatory purpose by altering behaviour. The
| levies are constitutionally valid regulatory charges._
|
| * https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2021/2021scc11/2021scc1...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_Gas_Pollution_Prici...
|
| Canada is a federation, and the national and provincial
| governments each have their areas of responsibility. There were
| challenges whether there was federal over reach, and the court
| said there was not given the structure of the legislation.
|
| * https://elc.ab.ca/i-read-the-carbon-tax-decision-so-you-dont...
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| It sounds more like a redistribution of some money based on
| some carbon criteria than a tax.
| caminante wrote:
| At the macro-level, yes. But aren't all taxes the re-
| distribution (gathering and disbursement) regardless of where
| the piles of money end up? At the micro/personal-level, it'd
| sure feel like a tax to me.
|
| The nuance here is Canada's constitution offers a framework
| to make a technical distinction argument and say
|
| (i) the federal Canadian govt.
|
| (ii) can impose this "tax" because it's a "regulatory scheme"
| via a catch-all authority provision outside its enumerated
| powers.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _(ii) can impose this "tax" because it's a "regulatory
| scheme" via a catch-all authority provision outside its
| enumerated powers._
|
| The SCC ruled that it was under the federal government's
| enumerated powers, or rather the "peace, order, and good
| government" (POGG) provision:
|
| > _Notably, the POGG power is a little different from the
| other subject matters listed under sections 91 and 92 of
| the Constitution, because it is a residual power, meaning
| that it allows the federal government to legislate over any
| subject that is not otherwise assigned to the federal or
| provincial governments under sections 91 and 92. To sort
| out exactly what this means, the courts have identified
| three possible uses of the POGG power, which are referred
| to as the three branches of POGG. They are: the emergency
| branch, the gap branch, and the national concern
| branch.[8]_
|
| * https://elc.ab.ca/i-read-the-carbon-tax-decision-so-you-
| dont...
|
| Different legal and constitutional traditions/fraem works
| may work differently. (Tautology is tautological...)
| caminante wrote:
| _> The SCC ruled that it was under the federal government
| 's enumerated powers_
|
| To clarify, I said the POGG was the catch-all provision.
| This is semantics and we directionally agree, but I
| wouldn't characterize the POGG as an "enumerated power".
| If the CA constitution explicitly said the CA federal
| govt. has the ability to place a federal carbon tax, then
| that'd be an enumerated power. Due to a lack of an
| enumerated federal carbon tax power, advocates had to
| rely on the [implied power from the] "catch all" POGG
| provision.
|
| Your article goes into why it's not an enumerated power
| (and consistent with my interpretation):
|
| _> Very briefly, the federal and provincial governments
| get their power to pass legislation from sections 91 and
| 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867 respectively.[7] These
| two sections list a bunch of subject matters and,
| essentially, each government can only pass legislation
| dealing with the subjects that it has been assigned. This
| is why the provinces deal with health care and education,
| whereas the federal government deals with the criminal
| law and the military._
|
| All of your articles were interesting. Thank you.
|
| edit:
|
| Checking wikipedia about the context of Canada's POGG
| provision[0], there's more explanation as to why POGG's
| not an enumerated power, but this is all semantics and
| above my intellect.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace,_order,_and_good_g
| overnm...
| T-A wrote:
| > While the term "tax" is used proverbially, if the government
| does not keep the money, it is actually on? This was a
| constitutional question in Canada, and the majority of the
| Supreme Court ruled that it was not
|
| As far as I can see, the text you quote does not answer your
| question. It presents an argument based on whether a regulatory
| scheme exists (step 1) and whether the charges imposed serve to
| alter behavior (step 2).
|
| It's easy to come up with examples which do answer your
| question: a large part of tax revenue (especially in Europe) is
| used to finance social welfare programs, including direct
| payments to individuals.
|
| As an aside, a government literally keeping tax money (beyond
| personal compensation packages) is probably not what you have
| in mind.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| My opinion it would be better politically if the government
| used carbon taxes to help people switch away from fossil fuels.
| It's one thing to pay a carbon tax as a Calvinistic Punishment
| for carbon sinning. Another if you think the tax is actually
| solving the problem.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _My opinion it would be better politically if the
| government used carbon taxes to help people switch away from
| fossil fuels._
|
| The province of Ontario originally had a cap-and-trade system
| where the fees collected would be used towards transit and
| other 'green' projects. There was an election and that was
| rescinded, so the province default to the national plan
| (which they challenged legally, and lost per the above).
|
| If people want "market" solutions, then carbon pricing and
| cap-and-trade are the two ways to do it. The latter was used
| by the US and Canada in ~1990 to successfully deal with acid
| rain.
|
| > _It 's one thing to pay a carbon tax as a Calvinistic
| Punishment for carbon sinning._
|
| It's not a sin tax: it's paying for the pollution that is
| currently externalized. Price signalling is hardly
| moralistic.
| mlinksva wrote:
| Good for Austria. From the article it seems they figured out a
| way to pay off rural voters (larger carbon dividend in areas with
| poor transit) and energy intensive industries (other tax cuts).
| I'd rather not see such provisions, but they're very pragmatic,
| and minor relative to the achievement. Copy round the world.
| olah_1 wrote:
| Naturally this means nothing for the ruling class and is
| devastating to the middle and lower classes.
|
| Why does every single policy lately lead to further
| consolidation...
| [deleted]
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Naturally this means nothing for the ruling class and is
| devastating to the middle and lower classes._
|
| People are getting refunded:
|
| > _Each resident in Austria will get an annual reimbursement,
| with the exact amount determined by where they live to ensure
| those in rural regions without good public transport don't lose
| out. Children are entitled to half their parents' amount -- so
| a family of two adults and two children in Vienna could expect
| to get 300 euros ($358) for example._
|
| The price on carbon is simply a price signal to show how much
| damage the environment something is doing. Presumably people
| will switch to cheaper, i.e., less damaging, goods and
| services.
|
| Carbon pricing being regressive is by no means a foregone
| conclusion:
|
| > _The literature on the distributional impacts of climate
| policies provides ambiguous results. Many studies find an
| overall tendency for regressive impacts (Araar et al. 2011;
| Gonzalez 2012). Others detect mostly regressive findings for
| developed countries while developing countries show an
| inconsistent picture with a tendency towards proportional or
| progressive impacts (Verde and Tol 2009; Wang et al. 2016).
| Nevertheless, progressive impacts have also been shown for
| developed countries like Australia (Sajeewani et al. 2015),
| Canada (Dissou and Siddiqui 2014) and Spain (Labandeira et al.
| 2009)._
|
| * https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-020-00521-1
|
| Implementation details matter, and there are ways for
| progressive results:
|
| * https://taxjustice.net/2020/06/30/carbon-taxes-can-be-
| progre...
|
| * https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-
| environment/550691-econom...
|
| > _So if you're aiming for the most net-progressive tax, you
| use the revenue for rebates -- helps the low-income, raises
| taxes on the high-income. If you're aiming to appeal to the
| middle class, you use the revenue for payroll tax reductions --
| helps the middle, increases taxes on either end._
|
| * https://www.vox.com/energy-and-
| environment/2018/7/20/1758437...
|
| *
| https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/distri...
| [deleted]
| masswerk wrote:
| Well, you could have calibrated things a bit differently.
| E.g., domestic heating isn't nice to have in Austria, but a
| necessity. Also, it's not a major contributing factor, it's
| just easily accessible by legislative action. On the other
| hand, if you're not building or renovation, and, if you're
| poor, the kind of heating you find to have, is kind of fate.
| Those refundings won't buy you a new heating system for your
| house. So, well, you could have started with more of a focus
| on the major, industrial contributors and refocus, when this
| has yielded as much as could be expected. In the meantime,
| focus on funding thermal home insolation, as is actually
| proposed in the program. (There has been done quite some in
| this direction, already.)
|
| (Disclaimer, I'm Austrian.)
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| > Those refundings won't buy you a new heating system for
| your house.
|
| That is true, but grants for replacing old heating systems
| have been around for a long time. In many cases however
| people did not take advantage of them because the cost of
| their old oil heating systems and others were not that bad.
| masswerk wrote:
| There have been fundings in the other direction, as well.
| In Austria, if you're running a business, you're
| automatically member of the _Osterreichische
| Wirtschaftskammer,_ WKO, (Austrian Chamber of Commerce)
| and paying a fee to run this. A few years ago, when
| climate awareness was already much a thing and everybody
| was trying to get rid of those things, the WKO was
| funding 50% of any costs of an oil fired domestic heating
| boiler out of these funds, as long as this was installed
| by a local firm. I had a hard time digesting the self-
| laudatory letter by the WKO on the matter of this
| "feat". (As it happens, the party dominating the WKO is
| also the major partner in the current government.)
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Oh I'm very aware. I get to enjoy paying for WKO as well
| and wish I wouldn't have to.
| masswerk wrote:
| I'm actually not against the idea, but very much of what
| the WKO is actually doing. As it happens, the WKO is
| probably the most pronounced enemy of small businesses in
| the country. (And it's kind of funny having to pay your
| enemy. I guess, this is kind of a luxury.)
| tomp wrote:
| No, a straightforward "carbon tax" would do that, but this is a
| revenue-neutral tax. So poor people who use less carbon (e.g.
| don't own Ferarris and private jets) will benefit (their carbon
| taxes will be below average, whereas their carbon bonuses will
| be average+)
|
| +caveat: looks like in Austria, rural residents will get more
| bonus than urban - to even out availability of public transport
| [deleted]
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > e.g. don't own Ferarris and private jets
|
| Sports cars and private jets are only for the one percent,
| but there's a problem with taxing carbon exhaust alone
| because the poor can't afford a new all-electric SUV or a
| plug-in hybrid, they're driving around in 20 or 30 year old
| cars every day if they have a car.
|
| I'm all for taxing those with unreasonable greenhouse
| emissions, but not being able to afford a cleaner car
| shouldn't be taxed. It's why I'm sceptical of proposed CO2
| taxes because many (if not most) of them fail to consider
| this problem.
| olah_1 wrote:
| The problem is the scaling. $10k to a billionaire is tissue
| paper. It simply doesn't matter to them. $1k to the
| middle/lower class could mean everything.
|
| My point is that this will continue to unreasonably restrict
| the lifestyle of middle/lower class while the elites won't
| even notice a difference. They can happily pay more to
| continue doing what they've always done.
|
| It's just like every single other "climate" policy that gets
| proposed. It is as if climate change simply doesn't exist for
| rich people. Just like covid. Which leads me to reasonably
| deduce that this is about consolidation and control. We can
| judge these policies by their fruit.
| paganel wrote:
| I feel we'll soon enough have a Brexit/Trump moment with these
| regressive taxes labeled as "environmental" taxes.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, if they manage it like Covid, people will riot.
| Everyone likes to talk about reducing their carbon footprint
| and shit, but push come to shove, no one wants to give up
| their lifestyle. Especially not the middle and upper classes.
|
| In the end, a bunch of people will just have to die, it's the
| only real solution.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| They are trying to reduce carbon emissions, not to be
| progressive or regressive. It looks like a measure for
| improving climate, not income redistribution.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| There is a US campaign for this kind of carbon tax that gets paid
| back to the people:
|
| https://citizensclimatelobby.org/price-on-carbon/
|
| This is something even conservatives can get on board with.
| [deleted]
| shkkmo wrote:
| I suspect it will be seen as wealth redistribution by creating
| a new tax and thus would not be supported by most
| conservatives.
|
| I think to get conservatives on-board you would have to mandate
| that all income from such a tax is used to remove or reduce
| other taxes.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I suspect it will be seen as wealth redistribution by
| creating a new tax and thus would not be supported by most
| conservatives._
|
| Former Federeal Reserve Chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke,
| Paul Volcker, and Janet Yellen (now at Treasury)--plus
| thousands of economists and dozens of Nobel laureates--signed
| support for carbon pricing:
|
| > _V. To maximize the fairness and political viability of a
| rising carbon tax, all the revenue should be returned
| directly to U.S. citizens through equal lump-sum rebates. The
| majority of American families, including the most vulnerable,
| will benefit financially by receiving more in "carbon
| dividends" than they pay in increased energy prices._
|
| * https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
|
| Not that logic is used much nowadays in the GOP, but if
| Greenspan of all people can sign onto it...
| bserge wrote:
| Introduce tax for citizens but reduce taxes for companies that
| would be affected by it?
|
| Does that sound idiotic only to me? You reduce taxes for these
| companies... so they can afford to keep polluting the same as
| before, and place the burden on the end consumer? Uhh, what?
| slownews45 wrote:
| Fantastic move by Austria, finally someone get's it, and is
| going to do it in a fair way instead of crap gimmicks!
| bserge wrote:
| Sometimes I think Russia has it right. No one can push them
| into stupid decisions, like the EU does with neighbouring
| countries.
|
| That's for Europe, of course. The US is king of pollution per
| capita and they don't give a flying fuck.
| vages wrote:
| Any well run company will reduce its emissions if it's cost
| effective, independent of whether the cost of pollution has
| been neutralised by a tax break.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Seems like it is serving the loud voter base - climate
| activists, meanwhile the real impact of climate change through
| power generation, agriculture, construction industry, aviation,
| etc. is being swept under the rug.
|
| In California, the last nuclear powerplant was shutdown this
| week. I am going to do what I can as a responsible citizen for
| climate change but I am not a fan of this asymmetry.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > In California, the last nuclear powerplant was shutdown
| this week. I am going to do what I can as a responsible
| citizen for climate change but I am not a fan of this
| asymmetry.
|
| Do you realize how myopic it is to have nuclear power-plants
| along the San Andreas fault line? Have you lived in
| California for very long? Do you not realize that CA is in a
| very unique position when it comes to renewable energy? And
| for what 9% of CA's energy needs? More could and should be
| done to increase it's reliance on renewables (~33% but
| growing).
|
| San Onofre was the most dangerous of all nuclear plants in
| the US and was left operational only due to industry standard
| vow of secrecy, and it had tons of violations prior to it
| being decommissioned. Diablo Canyon couldn't keep it's
| emergency cooling system operational for extended periods of
| time [0]. This should be a major red flag if you understand
| what occurred in Fukushima and caused not just the melt-down,
| but the melt-through and how they had to rely on external
| water sources to continuously douse the reactors then
| inevitably ended up in the Pacific Ocean.
|
| I am anti-nuclear, or better said, I'm anti 20th Century
| Nuclear plants, because of how incredibly bad things get when
| they do go wrong.
|
| Not to mention the profoundly stupid approach entities like
| the NRC have taken towards incredibly inept nuclear waste
| storage policy--paying NC to store it, and leaving what they
| can't send out in canisters along the Pacific Ocean or in the
| decommissioned pools.
|
| 0: https://calcoastnews.com/2016/12/pge-cited-cooling-system-
| fa...
| masswerk wrote:
| I guess, it sounds much like what it is: a compromise between a
| conservative party and the Green party acting as the junior
| partner in the coalition.
| jlmorton wrote:
| This is exactly how we would want to structure it. The point is
| not to punish anyone. The point is to simply increase the cost
| of the unwanted carbon emissions, and then let microeconomics
| take over.
|
| If you pass a new tax that causes a wave of corporate
| bankruptcies, job losses, unemployment, and other disruptions,
| that's a great way to ensure the policy is unpopular.
| Bancakes wrote:
| A carbon tax will not cause corporate bankruptcies. It will
| just make large polluters pull their weight financially.
| rjknight wrote:
| The point is presumably to phase out existing taxes on energy
| usage, or generic corporation taxes, in favour of new taxes on
| carbon emissions. What this means is that if there are two
| businesses which both consume lots of energy, but business A
| emits less carbon than business B, then A pays less tax than B.
| Under the current system they would both pay the same amount of
| tax. This means that shifting to a lower-carbon strategy can be
| a competitive advantage as it reduces the tax burden of the
| business. Starting up a new operation which will emit high
| levels of carbon is now _less_ profitable too.
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