With the “climate bonus”, Austria wants to cushion the effects of a new CO2 tax on citizens. The bonus will be decided in February 2022 and is now 500 euros. The government must now concede that the deceased also receive the bonus.
Austria’s government has admitted that it will also pay out the so-called climate bonus to thousands of people who have died. The premium of 500 euros for adults and 250 euros for children has been granted since the beginning of September to all those “who have been able to prove that they have had their primary residence in Austria for at least six months,” said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Environment. The money also goes to all those dead who are still in the register of the tax offices, she added.
In this case, the premium goes to the heirs of the deceased. According to the ministry, it is not legally possible to repay the money. Those affected who had tried this reported to the Austrian press.
The “climate bonus” was passed in February on the initiative of the Greens and is to be paid out once a year. It aims to mitigate the impact of a new corporate carbon tax on consumers. For the state, this means a one-off payment worth billions. Before the distribution began, the premium was doubled again to absorb the price increases resulting from the war in Ukraine.
The bonus was already being discussed controversially before its bizarre side effects became known. The liberal opposition party Neos called for a complete overhaul of the law on Wednesday and condemned the waste of taxpayers’ money. Previously, there had been criticism from members of the ÖVP, which governed with the Greens, that asylum seekers also received the bonus.
