Recycling Charges Are Taking The Piss!

In what would appear to be a genius move by the local government in almost all companies in the in the N&230;stved, Ringsted and Vordingborg kommune areas are being forced to pay for access to Fasan's recycling facilities which they may never actually use.

I'm all for recycling, but this charge of 840 DKK a year is little more than a sly way to hide a tax and it's implementation is unbelievably badly thought out.

Before I go any further let me make one thing clear, this levy has to be paid regardless of whether you use the service or not.

All companies, with very few minor exceptions ( .doc file in Danish) are expected to pay this levy, irrespective of company size, number of employees or income.

So, if you happen to have a 200 employees a massive income and generate a lot of chemical waste you have to pay this levy.

If you're 1 person running a hobby company with no waste you have to pay this levy.

If you're 1 person and your company has no waste and no income you have to pay this levy. (Internet startup anybody?)

If you happen to run your company from home and already pay for waste removal / recycling, you have to pay this levy. Only now you're paying twice. Once for the service you need which will take the trash from where you are, and once for the privilege of driving out to a place and delivering it yourself.

If you have multiple small companies registered to your address and lets say you only do internet work (only a small bit of paper waste in the form of the odd pizza box) and already pay for waste disposal. Yep you guess it, you still have to pay this levy. But worse, you have to pay for EVERY company name registered to the address, even if you're the only person their!

This is pure daylight robbery. Plain and simple and there is nothing more to it.

It's been badly implemented, and poor thought out.

No thought has been put into this except as a way to rip a lot of hard working single person companies and small business off, most of which are already struggling to make ends meet.

No thought has been given to the effect this will have on many of the recycling and waste removal companies that exist now. How much business will they loose?

The kommune in &197;rhus had a similar issue when they introduced a similar law a few years ago. At least the outcome of there's was that companies with an income of less that 50,000 (PDF1 / PDF2 Danish) were exempt from being forced to pay the levy, which mean that it didn't hurt the little guy so much.

How about a pay as you use system? Wouldn't that make a lot more sense?

One of the main reasons I'm seriously pissed off about this tax is because one of our users on Bloomer wrote in the forums today that&160; her company, which is just her and had an annual income of only 9000 DKK, has to pay this levy of 840 DKK (1050DKK after tax).

That's 9.3% of her companies income for a service she will never use.

Somebody please tell me that this can't be right.

Share This

This post originally appeared on Paul OFlahertys Technology Blog.

© 2008 Paul OFlaherty

Link to original post: Recycling charges are taking the piss! | 3 comments

---
Related Articles at O'Flaherty:

• Urine powered battery? You must be taking the piss!
• Taking the Plunge
• XXX is here
• Garaunteed to Piss You Off
• Sasser informant under investigation.