Worrying about the working conditions of parcel deliverers is much better than making up a pointless tax.
It makes no sense at all and is itself a ridiculous proposition. A few euros tax on delivered packages to reduce the number of 'delivery madness'. Jasper den Boon of the Nederlands Dagblad writes that it seems that the ChristenUnie is doing this in front of the stage. Worrying about the working conditions of parcel deliverers is much better than making up a pointless tax.
For example, the coalition party's plan is to pay a fixed amount for each order, in addition to a percentage of the order's value. It is questionable whether such a tax contributes to 'useless' kilometers. In his piece den Boon gives a simple example.
If the average Dutch person wants to buy a pair of trousers, he has to drive 3,5 kilometers to get to a suitable shopping area. And then he has to go back. Almost half of the Dutch do this with their car. If they order online, a van comes along that travels about XNUMX kilometers, but brings many more other products in it.
ChristenUnie Member of Parliament Pieter Grinwis wants to contribute with this to the local shops in the street that are getting more and more difficult. “Every time we check out our virtual shopping cart, a delivery person has to go. Such a delivery movement has all kinds of negative effects, such as CO2 emissions and unsafe traffic situations.Grinwis said.
Also the packages from SMEs themselves should be taxed but the 'volume' of that sector is smaller, Grinwis says, so the revenue should flow back to smaller companies. Exactly what the tax will look like is left to the cabinet for the smallest coalition party. How feasible the plan is for the already overburdened tax authorities remains to be seen. Pieter Grinwis' statement is at odds with an article earlier this week, in which TNO had calculated, among other things, that online stores are on average better for the environment than physically going to the store.
