This means that a taxi does not count as public transport, because employees can deduct the actual ticket costs for buses or trains.
The question of whether a taxi counts as a means of public transport in tax law or not was an explicit topic of the proceedings. The sixth Senate of the BFH came to the conclusion that the exemption for public transport in the Income Tax Act is actually only intended for buses and trains, not for taxis.
This is bitter for the plaintiff, who lives in Thuringia: The man has not been able to drive a car safely himself since 2007 due to a disability, as the decision shows. The process was about the years 2016 and 2017. In the two years, the man had spent over 9,000 euros on taxi rides to work, which he wanted to deduct from the tax. He had won in the first instance before the Thuringian finance court.
