German Govt to increase aviation taxes from 01-Jan-2020, decrease VAT on rail journeys

Germany's Government announced (20-Sep-2019) plans to implement legislation increasing aviation taxes from 01-Jan-2020. The air traffic surcharge will be increased to a level sufficient to offset the costs of decreasing VAT on long distance rail journeys from 19% to 7%, allowing train journeys to become 10% cheaper. The legislation will also include an amendment to the Aviation Tax Act preventing dumping of airline tickets, with airfares unable to be lower than the aggregate amount of taxes, surcharges and other charges and fees attributable to the ticket. [more - original PR - German]