Gas and district heating customers as well as pensioners can breathe easy in December. They receive financial grants, which many people receive in December. We show what changes are coming in December, who benefits from the grants and when the Christmas mail should be sent out.
There has been a lot of discussion in the Bundestag in recent weeks about relieving gas customers. Ultimately, it was decided to provide emergency aid for private customers and small businesses that use gas or district heating.
In concrete terms, this means that the state will pay the down payment once in December.
If the provider usually collects the discount, customers do not have to take over anything. The December deduction will not be withdrawn. If customers normally transfer the advance payment, they can cancel the order for December.
Unfortunately, tenants who bill their landlord for gas or district heating may have to be patient. They do not receive their emergency aid in December, but as a credit with the next utility bill
Various energy flat rates have been agreed as part of the relief packages, one of which is due in the last month of the year.
Almost 20 million people in Germany receive a statutory old-age, reduced earning capacity, orphan’s or widow’s pension or pension payments under the Civil Service and Soldiers’ Pensions Act. They can look forward to an energy flat rate of over 300 euros, which will be paid out by December 15th.
At 11 a.m. on December 8th, German mobile phone users get loud: A loud signal tone sounds on the smartphone and a warning SMS flashes. This is a disaster drill controlled by the Cell Broadcast system.
Mobile phone users in 294 administrative districts and 107 urban districts received the warning. The exercise is automatic, no app needs to be downloaded.
Deutsche Bahn will publish its new winter timetable on December 11th. The main changes here are the number of journeys and trains.
Thanks to the new high-speed route between Wendlingen and Ulm, not only are more trips offered, but connections between Cologne and Munich are also around 15 minutes faster.
The new ICE 3neo will also be used on the route between Munich, Cologne and Dortmund.
60 percent more seats on the route from Munich to Frankfurt Airport via Ulm and Stuttgart and on the route from Bremen to Cologne via Osnabrück and Münster bring relief for rail customers.
Deutsche Post and DHL have published their deadlines for the Christmas mail to arrive on time:
The Federal Office for Radiation Protection has decreed that from December 31, beauticians may only remove hair by laser or IPL if they can present proof of specialist knowledge.
In addition, the devices must be registered with the authorities before they are used for the first time.
The price spiral keeps turning. More and more municipal utilities will raise prices in the coming year. Rising energy costs are increasingly becoming an additional burden for households and companies. FOCUS online says which public utilities are affected and what you can do about it.
By the end of January, every property owner in Germany must have completed the property tax assessment. Already the excitement is huge. The constitutional lawyer Gregor Kirchhof explains why the property tax reform was necessary and what went wrong in the implementation.
Because of the increased rental costs, many federal states want to grant their civil servants high back payments from tax funds. Depending on where they live, officials with two children could be paid a five-digit amount. It doesn’t matter whether the officials live in rented accommodation or in their own home.
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