The ‘penny of Kok’ will probably never come off

Traditionally, the ‘penny of Kok’ is often used when tax increases arrive, especially if that is at the pump as it is now. An increase in excise duty on petrol and diesel that was implemented in 1991 was quite some time ago. Over the years, some noise seems to have arisen here and there about that ‘quarter’, what it exactly looked like and whether or not that has been compensated. After all, it would be a temporary measure, wouldn’t it?

25.3 cents from Maij and Van Amelsvoort

The first important misunderstanding is that it is about a quarter (25 guilders) per liter of fuel. In total it was 25.3 cents, but that increase was divided between petrol and diesel. For example, there was an 18.3 cent increase in excise duty per liter for petrol and 7 cents for diesel. This measure came from Transport Minister Hanja Maij-Weggen and the State Secretary of Finance, Marius van Amelsvoort.

There we have a second misunderstanding; it was therefore not Wim Kok (PvdA) who initiated this, it was two CDA members. Kok did bear some responsibility for this as Minister of Finance. Maij-Weggen wanted to discourage car use and part of the proceeds had to be put into public transport. Van Amelsvoort wanted to use the increase in excise duty to close a gap in the budget. The knife therefore cut both ways, although the motorist had little appetite for more expensive car fuels. From the sector, Bovag and the ANWB, among others, protested against this increased burden and it was jokingly baptized ‘the quarter of Kok’. A legend was born.

Refund not promised

It is regularly claimed that it was promised from the outset that it was a temporary increase. The problem with that is that there is no documentation of anyone in the Lubbers III administration actually saying that. Fidelity dug into it again 11 years ago and only encountered a rather ‘politically safe’ response from none other than Wim Kok himself, who probably led to ‘his quarter’ being labeled as something temporary. “I don’t rule it out, but I don’t admit it either,” Kok responded when asked whether it would eventually be reversed. For enough people and institutions, this may have been enough to keep waiting for the penny to be returned.

Has the ‘quarter of Kok’ been returned?

The short answer: no and that was not promised. Yet things have been done by previous governments that you could see as giving back part of the penny. That is how it was packaged in The Hague at the time, although it is not entirely correct. The increase in excise duty has never been completely reversed at the pump.

NRC reviewed what previous governments have done to ‘give the penny back’. For example, in 2001 and 2002 there were excise cuts for diesel which, according to NRC At the bottom of the line, the 7 guilder cents were compensated again, but in 2008 the excise duties went up again and that ‘quarter compensation’ was canceled out again. The petrol part of the penny has been put into infrastructure by the Balkenende II cabinet. That’s how it was done back then anyway. Former Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende (CDA) previously had as an important political spearhead that he wanted to give his predecessor’s penny back to the motorist. So he kind of succeeded, by putting that part of the excise revenues into road construction. Yet that was not a direct return of the penny either, because nothing changed at the pump.

Over the past 32 years, the ‘Cook quarter’ has become something of a political symbol rather than a still clearly measurable quarter that we should still be getting back. It is true that it has never been returned one-on-one, but it is true that investments have been made for motorists. Moreover, no clear promise has ever been made to reverse the measure. The motorist who still hopes that the ‘penny’ (8 euro cents for petrol, 3 euro cents for diesel) will ever be paid off at the pump will almost certainly be disappointed. However, a partial reversal of last year’s excise duty reduction awaits us on Saturday 1 July. They were very clear in The Hague that the excise duty reduction was temporary.