Carmakers’ CO2 emissions fraud costs Germany over ten billion euros in lost tax revenue – NGO

The manipulation of exhaust emissions values by German carmakers has cost the German state in excess of ten billion euros in lost tax revenue, the NGO Environmental Action Germany (DUH) says in a press release. “Many carmakers have misled their customers not only on nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, but also on vehicles’ petrol consumption and, consequently, their CO₂ emissions,” the DUH says. The difference between advertised and actual values is 42 percent on average, which has cost the German state over ten billion euros in lost motor vehicle tax revenues since 2009, the year when taxation was tied to CO₂ emissions. In 2017 alone, the state forfeited 2.4 billion euros in taxes, the DUH says. The NGO calls on Germany’s new transport minister, Andreas Scheuer, to “end decades of cronyism with notorious outlaws and discontinue the rejection of controls that his predecessors practiced.”

Read the press release in German here.

Find background in the CLEW article Why the German diesel summit matters for climate and energy.