The term is not sharply definable because many tax related laws influence buyer behaviour which is not always a wanted effect (compensation reaction).
Some of the eco-taxes ("Ökosteuer") in Germany and Austria are also steering taxes, in the sense of the originally intended Eco-social market economy.
If, for example they reduce the emission of greenhouse gases or environmentally dangerous pollutants and reduce their Ecological footprint, they get back an ecological bonus (German: Ökobonus), because with the consumption of non-taxed environmentally friendly products, they pay less eco-taxes than the Green-Cheque is per capita: The amount of the eco-bonus is independent from the energy consumption of the individual recipients.
In the words of a publication of the European Environment Agency: “A Swiss study (INFRAS/ECOPLAN, 1998), which investigated the economic and social impacts of different energy tax schemes, showed that redistributing revenues in the form of a per capita bonus is the most progressive option for an Environmental-tax-reform and creates the most beneficial social effects, although it leads to slightly negative effects on economic development.”[6] The repayment of steering taxes is often named fiscal subsidy.
If this is accurate depends if one believes a steering tax is used solely as a direct transfer of public funds to private persons, or if they are seen as a relinquishment of state earnings to realize Fiscal neutrality for this market-based environmental policy instrument.