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PPWR is not the only one. Don't forget WEEE and the battery regulation. Only for VAT we have a single entrypoint, for all other regulations, businesses have to

PPWR is not the only one. Don't forget WEEE and the battery regulation. Only for VAT we have a single entrypoint, for all other regulations, businesses have to submit for each country. Its simply impossible. On the other hand I estimate that between 50% and 200% of the taxes collected like this are wasted and not applied to their ultimate goals. The average collected amount per submission is so small that you cannot pay the bureaucrats managing the complex submissions from these sums. An entrepreneur told me that they were being audited regarding the battery regulation. Two consultants came over from EY and audited all submissions in depth. They found out that the business overpaid by €10. The entrepreneur of course didn't mind and told them to keep the €10. The EY consultants told the entrepreneur to resubmit, otherwise the business would be fined. I think the government spent more on that audit by EY than the business will ever bring in on fees. On top of this we have the regulations like Intrastat and in the future near-real-time submission of digital invoices to our tax authorities.

realityking 23d ago
> On the other hand I estimate that between 50% and 200% of the taxes collected like this are wasted and not applied to their ultimate goals. The average collected amount per submission is so small that you cannot pay the bureaucrats managing the complex submissions from these sums. The point of this tax is not to raise revenue bit to disincentivize wate. Since the tax weight based, companies have an incentive to reduce packaging.
- tsss 22d ago
  Customers already pay for the disposal. You could achieve the same thing by requiring sellers to list in checkout how much the disposal of their packaging will cost. That's a 10 minute change for Claude Code, but of course then it would not give more money and power to the useless bureaucrats.
  - realityking 22d ago
    First of all that's a weaker signal to the manufacturer/seller to make changes as it'd only indirectly affect them. It's also moot - in most (all?) European cities you only pay for waste but not recycling (paper, plastic, glas, aluminum, etc.). Those are free and paid for by exactly the kind of recycling fees we're discussing here.

realityking 23d ago

> On the other hand I estimate that between 50% and 200% of the taxes collected like this are wasted and not applied to their ultimate goals. The average collected amount per submission is so small that you cannot pay the bureaucrats managing the complex submissions from these sums. The point of this tax is not to raise revenue bit to disincentivize wate. Since the tax weight based, companies have an incentive to reduce packaging.

tsss 22d ago
Customers already pay for the disposal. You could achieve the same thing by requiring sellers to list in checkout how much the disposal of their packaging will cost. That's a 10 minute change for Claude Code, but of course then it would not give more money and power to the useless bureaucrats.
- realityking 22d ago
  First of all that's a weaker signal to the manufacturer/seller to make changes as it'd only indirectly affect them. It's also moot - in most (all?) European cities you only pay for waste but not recycling (paper, plastic, glas, aluminum, etc.). Those are free and paid for by exactly the kind of recycling fees we're discussing here.