Tag: Deutsche Post

Berlin ponders mail VAT move

Posted by | Oct 10, 2007 | |

The German government is considering exempting private-sector postal operators from value-added tax in order to improve their competitive position with Deutsche Post, the former monopoly, three months before the liberalization of the German letters market.

A spokesman for chancellor Angela Merkel told the FT that Berlin was reviewing ways to “correct competitive distortions” in the postal market. “The review includes the different tax treatment of affected companies.”

Currently, only Deutsche Post is exempted from VAT in its letters business on the ground that it provides a universal public service – a mandate that includes the obligation to serve remote and thinly populated parts of the country.

Competitors, including Pin, a joint venture created by large publishing houses, and the Netherlands’ TNT, have long complained that the exemption gave Deutsche Post, which controls 91 per cent of the German letters market, an unfair competitive advantage.
Their complaints grew louder this summer after the government decided to impose a minimum wage on postal services. The government plans to use a 1996 law that allows it to declare a wage deal between the trade unions and employers in any sector as legally binding for all companies in this sector.

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Germany's Merkel plans to eliminate Deutsche Post's tax advantage

Posted by | Oct 9, 2007 | |

German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to strip Deutsche Post AG of a tax advantage in order to appease the postal company’s competitors that deem the tax break unfair, Handelsblatt reported, citing government sources.

Under current fiscal rules, Deutsche Post’s basic postal services are exempt of the 19 pct value-added tax while comparable services provided by rivals are not, even after Deutsche Post’s monopoly on delivering letters expires at the end of the year, the paper said.

Merkel, backed by leaders of her party’s parliamentary group, wants to level that difference to allay anger over a minimum wage agreement for the postal services industry that logistics companies say puts them at a disadvantage against the dominant Deutsche Post, the paper reported, citing the sources.

Lawmaker are discussing whether the entire industry should be granted the tax break or whether the sales tax should be levied on Deutsche Post’s services,

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3.2 Million Germans vote for their mail carrier of the year

Posted by | Oct 4, 2007 | |

Often they do more than just delivering letters and parcels: mail carriers catch thieves, free people locked in a boiler room, and save the day when holidays are at stake. Customers appreciate this level of commitment: 3.2 million German citizens took part in the “Vote for your favorite mail carrier” campaign as Deutsche Post searched for the 1,000 most favorite mail carriers of the year.

“The campaign was an enormous success,” says Jürgen Gerdes, Board Member for MAIL and PARCELS Germany of Deutsche Post World Net. “The positive feedback was overwhelming.” From July 2 to August 31, 2007 customers were able to register their vote for their Mail Carrier of the Year either by sending in a postcard or online. From amongst all the entries received the company is giving away 1,350 valuable prizes, including 50 Smart for two cars. The winners will receive a written notification in October. The 1,000 mail carriers who received the most votes in their delivery districts will receive an award from the Deutsche Post Board of Management on October 27, 2007, in Berlin.

The high response rate shows just how good the image of the 80,000 mail carriers at Deutsche Post really is all over Germany. In sparsely populated, remote areas participation was particularly high: In Hemmoor, Lower Saxony, for example, 97.1 percent of households took part in the campaign. In larger cities mail carriers have a broad fan base, too, with responses particularly high in Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Augsburg, Giessen, Kiel, and Karlsruhe.

Many members of the public took the opportunity to relate highly personal and, in some cases, spectacular tales about “their” mail carrier. One such example is Petra S. from Bexbach who thanked her mail carrier for ensuring that her trip to Australia started off on the right note. He learnt from talking to her that she was expecting important travel documents and kept an eye out for the long awaited envelope at his mail office. On the day of her flight the documents finally arrived. The mail carrier immediately took them to Petra S. – with just two hours to spare before she was due to depart. “That really was last-minute,” the happy customer wrote, who was only too willing to give the helpful mail carrier her vote.

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DHL announce that KEBA will install a further 1500 Packstations

Posted by | Oct 3, 2007 | |

Andrej Busch, Member of the Board, DHL Germany, announced the installation of another 1,500 PACKSTATIONS additional to the existing 850 systems in Germany. The supplier for the systems is the Austrian company KEBA again. The world market leader KEBA has installations of similar systems in Austria, Norway and Qatar.

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