Posted on 01/01/2020 7:06:10 PM PST by Olog-hai
Train travelers in Germany have an extra reason to celebrate entering 2020 — the national railway company Deutsche Bahn is cutting prices for long-distance rides. The government wants more people to take the train.
Deutsche Bahn has unrolled new prices for 2020 and made its tickets 10% cheaper for long-distance traffic, the German railway company said. The move, which went into effect on Wednesday, stems from the climate protection measures passed by the German government — the Cabinet cut the value-added tax (VAT) on rail travel in December from 19% to 7% in an effort to make train travel more attractive.
“We are passing on this tax cut to our customers,” Deutsche Bahn said on its website.
The new prices apply to trips of over 50 kilometers (31 miles), but only if the passenger travels from one railway region into another.
The company is also cutting prices on special offers and additional services, such as fees for transporting bicycles. […]
Deutsche Bahn is a private joint-stock company with the Federal Republic of Germany being its single shareholder. The government hopes to reform the troubled transporter as the country works to reduce carbon emissions. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
You have a point, but I’ll be traveling alone.
Well, when it's the "value added tax" (basically a sales tax) that gets reduced I'm not really sure what gets affected. I just thought it was funny that the spokesman thought to mention that the sales tax reduction would be "passed on" to the customer.
The average income in North Dakota is about $7,000 per month, in Germany about $4,500. In North Dakota a worker gets to keep most of it, but in Germany they'll get expensive electricity, windmills, and trains!
In Germany, taking a train to the concentration camps is the only way to go.
Yes, and take photos of themselves, right before they go back to their first-class seat.
Fair enough, since before 1920 all railroads in Germany had been run by the individual German states, not the Reich (the national government).
Compare the USA, where almost all railroads before the 1960s were privately owned; the federal and state governments taxed and regulated them so onerously that they couldn’t operate any passenger service, culminating in state governments taking over local passenger rail service and the creation of Amtrak in 1972.
Oh, I hadn’t been aware of that. Very interesting indeed :-)
Thank you for this bit of information.
That’s one thing that sticks in my craw about Nixon; instead of doing something like creating Amtrak, he could have instead deregulated the railroads, which happened when it was too late to save private passenger rail (laws like the Staggers Act and others) never mind save a lot of smaller railroads, which is why we have just five big Class 1 railroads these days.
I see.
Actually I must admit that I never have thought about the possibility of that measure being taken by the Nixon administration. I think that might have been a good chance.
But I’m obviously not well informed enough, being a) a foreigner and b) too young to have witnessed the Nixon years :-)
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