An amendment to the Municipal Tax Act will ban municipal packaging taxes in Bavaria in the future.

At the beginning of September, following a hearing with associations, the Bavarian Council of Ministers decided to ban municipal packaging taxes at the suggestion of Bavaria's Minister of the Interior and Municipal Affairs, Joachim Herrmann. A corresponding draft bill to amend the Bavarian Municipal Tax Act is to be submitted to the Bavarian State Parliament. “We want to reduce bureaucracy and ease the burden on citizens. A new special tax – as demanded in some places – would have exactly the opposite effect. We will not go along with that,” explained Herrmann. A packaging tax would not only be a bureaucratic monster, an additional burden on the economy, authorities, and citizens, but, in the minister's view, it would also send the wrong signal at this time. In addition, imposing a packaging tax on the restaurant industry would contradict the planned reduction in sales tax on food starting in 2026, according to Herrmann. The interior minister does not see any legal concerns in this regard. The Bavarian Constitutional Court had already ruled that municipalities do not have independent legislative authority for certain types of taxes. The ban on municipal packaging taxes is said to be within the scope of legislative discretion.

 
Herrmann also questions the significant ecological benefits of a municipal packaging tax, as claimed by critics. According to a 2023 study by the University of Tübingen, there would be no evidence that the introduction of such a tax has led to a reduction in the amount of waste. Herrmann also pointed to reusable systems that already existed in many places today.
 
Sources:

• Press release StMI Bavaria (2.9.2025)
• Photo: © BayStMI