Knock me down with a feather, the German government proposed something sensible on the gas price!
The price of a liter of gasoline here rose to €2.36 over the weekend. That is the equivalent of about $9.83 a gallon.
Even the Germans, used to high pump prices, are starting to complain. One of the reasons the price is so high here is that there is an illegal (under the German constitution) tax on the price of gasoline at the pump. There is the price of gas itself, plus the oil tax, which is about three times as much. Several years ago, the government decided to stick VAT (Value Added Tax) of 19% onto the TOTAL price. That means they were adding 19% not only to the gasoline, but also slapping a 19% tax on the oil tax, which was already 75% of the price. A friend of ours is a judge on the tax court here, and I asked him if that wasn't unconstitutional, as the German constitution forbids double taxation (the same reason a wealth tax failed here--it seems that 80 years ago, a certain ethnic group was saddled with that, and the post-war Germans decided their constitution would never let it happen again). Our friend said it was absolutely unconstitutional, but no one had ever filed a suit against it. If such a case came before him, he would rule against it immediately. No one ever has.
But at these unprecedented high price levels, there is a lot of grumbling from the voters of all parties. There is serious grumbling even from within the parties except the far right AfD, who thrives off of discontent with the government. Their voters hate it, so they love it.
Someone from the government (I forget who) just proposed lowering the VAT on the pump price from 19% to 7%, a rate at which certain articles and services are VATaxed. It may seem like a minor deal, but it would lower the pump price by about US$1 per gallon. Since the tax shouldn't be there in the first place, maybe this is a first step toward getting it eliminated altogether, although expecting THAT much common sense from an EU government is probably up there with Little Red Riding Hood getting saved from the Big Bad Wolf.
I have always disliked the VAT, since it hits the lower income people the hardest, and it is like government heroin. It is very addictive, and once hooked, every government always seems to need more of it. But this is a small step in the right direction. The government can always raise the oil tax any time they want. Taxing the tax is over the top in my opinion, and even a small step toward reversing it is a step in the right direction. Mind you, this is NOT a done deal, just a proposal--but it is a good one in my opinion.
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Taxing the tax... sounds like a magat slush fund.
To sit on boards while pretending to serve the country. 
Corruption must run deep there, too. Sorry to hear!
