The federal government is removing a tax exemption for the postal service. In return, requirements for the maximum delivery time for letters should be relaxed. The postal service considers the plan to be illegal and warns of higher postage costs.
The federal government would like to remove a tax advantage from Deutsche Post and in return somewhat alleviate the time pressure when transporting letters. The Federal Cabinet has passed a corresponding legislative proposal, as the Federal Ministry of Economics announced in Berlin. This is about the sales tax exemption for so-called partial services, i.e. letters to business customers - for example from banks and insurance companies. Since 2024, Deutsche Post and some smaller competitors have been exempt from tax, while other postal service providers are not. The planned measure will create a level playing field, the ministry said.
Another reason for the project is likely to be the hope of additional revenue for the state. According to earlier information, the federal government could collect up to 115 million euros per year from the post office as a result of the new regulation. The postal service considers the planned sales tax change to be unlawful. The consequences would be “counterproductive,” said the Bonn logistics specialist.
“Letters, especially from banks, insurance companies and the public sector, would become unnecessarily more expensive, thereby further accelerating the switch to digital alternatives.” This would accelerate the structural problem of the mail market, the postal service warned. “Volumes continue to fall, while the costs of comprehensive infrastructure and wages rise.” As a result, each individual letter will become more expensive in the future and financing the universal service will become increasingly difficult. The post office is a so-called universal service provider. So it has to deliver shipments everywhere in Germany - even in less populated rural regions - and therefore has to operate a lot of mailboxes and branches, which leads to higher costs.
The competition does not have such delivery obligations. The Swiss Post's smaller mail competitors rated the federal government's plan as positive. This clears the way to fair competitive conditions in the letter market, said the chairman of the Federal Association of Letter Services, Walther Otremba.
The proposed law, which is still coming to the Bundestag, also contains positive news for the yellow giant: The so-called delivery time requirement is to be relaxed: so far, the post office has to have delivered 99 percent of the letters posted today within four working days at the latest. This value must continue to be achieved. However, an exception clause will apply in the future: shipment quantities that could not be transported due to "force majeure" will not be deducted when calculating this percentage. If, for example, the postmen cannot move out due to extreme weather conditions or they travel more slowly, their left-over letters do not have a negative impact on the official letter-time statistics. In exceptional cases, letters could therefore take longer than four working days to travel.
The weakening of this rule is also financially good for the postal service because it means it does not have to shoulder certain maintenance costs. This would be, for example, additional staff or short-term changes to the vehicle fleet in order to speed up the transport of letters in such extreme weather situations - such as switching from very slow trucks to small, faster transporters. In addition, certain bureaucratic obligations should be reduced at the post office.
