Budget package allows one-person companies "standing in the rain"

Commercial agents – often also called sales representatives – are independent traders who broker or conclude transactions directly on behalf of one or more manufacturers or wholesalers. They therefore act as a link between producers and wholesalers or retailers. And sales agents usually operate in the form of a one-person company.

„Die Reduction of additional wage costs is important, but not a relief for many companies. If you don’t employ any employees, you don’t benefit from this. For the majority of companies – namely the EPU – there is hardly anything tangible in the current package. “This is a fatal signal to those who work every day, take risks and earn their own living,” says Robert M. Hieger, Chairman of the Federal Board of Commercial Agents.

In Austria, around 60 percent of companies are one-person companies. These entrepreneurs bear risk, generate their own income, pay taxes and duties – but benefit little or not at all from many of the announced relief measures, is the criticism.

Hieger sees the commercial agents as representative of many EPUs and micro-enterprises that are currently active Budget and tax policy is not taken into account enough become. Sales agents alone place billions in orders every year and are an essential interface in B2B sales. Nevertheless, many tax regulations ignore the reality of small, mobile companies.

A particularly clear example is tax treatment vehicles used for operational purposes. The so-called appropriateness limit has remained unchanged at 40,000 euros since 2005. The government program envisaged a gradual increase – initially to 55,000 euros, later towards 65,000 euros. From the point of view of commercial agents, this adjustment is long overdue, but is now in danger of being slowed down again.

The regulation is also particularly impractical for young used vehicles: For used cars up to five years old, the original list price is used as the tax basis for tax purposes, not the purchase price actually paid. The real purchase price only counts again from an age of over five years. In practice, this leads to completely wrong incentives.

Tax-wise worse

“Anyone who buys a well-negotiated demonstration car or a young hybrid or electric vehicle today has a worse tax outcome than someone who buys a much older combustion engine. In extreme cases an old Porsche is more attractive from a tax perspective than a young VW Golf Hybrid. “This is not modern tax policy, but rather a prank at the expense of entrepreneurs and the environment,” said Hieger.

For many EPU, the car is not a luxury good, but a necessary tool for work. Commercial agents, mobile service providers and many small entrepreneurs in particular are on the go on customer appointments every day. At the same time, the current rules make it difficult to invest in modern, safe and low-emission vehicles.

The sales agents are therefore calling for concrete measures for EPUs and micro-enterprises: a significant increase and future valorization of the adequacy limit, an appropriate regulation for used vehicles based on the actual purchase price and tax incentives for modern and low-emission vehicles.

Hieger calls on politicians and interest groups not to ignore EPUs in the budget debate: “EPUs are often described in Sunday speeches as the backbone of the economy. But when it comes to concrete relief, they remain on the sidelines. That is not acceptable. If the majority of companies do not think along with them, they are not making economic policy for the general public.”