I wonder how much it will be for push bikes…
As a recent EV and diesel owner, the current RUC system is dog shit.
But I’m not sure how they’re going to make it any better.
Allowing it to be post-paid when you do your WoF would just lead to a massive bill every year unless you stayed on top of it.
But what bills are the ones you don’t pay when you’re hard up? The optional ones. So that would stil impact the poorest despite “being fair”.
Unless they allow you to pay outstanding RUCs over the year, but I doubt that.
And neither of these options sound likely. The calls to “enable innovation” just sounds like a way to tack corporate fees onto a national tax.
Why do they it will work like that? Who said anything about paying at WOF time?
Basically, they want an app, and the option of some type of E-ruc system where you pay automatically.
@BaconWrappedEnigma , I think that overall a large portion of petrol driven cars will pay quite a bit more - the reason is that a huge amount of newer cars were bought because they consumed up to half the amount that older ones did, the huge number of small, fuel friendly cars on the road atm shows this trend - so it will be a win for the tax man.
I can see that this will result in less kms driven (a good thing for the environment where it involves petrol cars), this in turn will also mean less weekend outings, less holidays further afield, and in clear text another knockout for the industry depending on it and for business in general - I hope I’m not going to be right.I predict everyone is going to pay more as the revenue collection will be farmed out to private industry who will all not collude, but charge exactly the same fees.
charge exactly the same fees.
Isn’t that the point of collecting a levy?
Weekend trips would contribute to the velocity of money in the economy. It’s a bit hidden in your message. Are you saying we should:
- Tax the things that are bad for the economy
- Incentivise the things that are good for the economy
Are you also saying that this change would:
- Disconnect incentives from fuel economy / vehicle efficiency
- Unfairly punish people that made choices under the previous rules
- Remove a tax from “something bad” for our economy (importing petrol)
- Add a tax for “something good” for the economy (travel/shipping/deliveries)
I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Am I reading too much into your comment? 🙂
@BaconWrappedEnigma , yes.
It’s another thumb screw to squeeze ever more taxes from those who can barely/not afford it anymore.
An ill thought through action from a government we already know gives a damn about the environment and generally looks after the top of society and contrary to their statements cares neither for general business either.
Good solutions should take all these issues into account and find a way that serves the people.Nah, the people you’re talking about are driving old beaters that drink fuel, because that’s all they can afford, and are paying far more per KM than anyone
70c/l at 10l per 100km is almost exactly the same as RUCs, which are $76 per 100km, but with a bigger overall bill, as an equivalent diesel would be somewhere in the 7l range.
It’s an interesting distinction you bring up. What is our goal? Do we want to ameliorate the plight of the poor with a fuel tax or RUCs? If that was the goal wouldn’t a tax based on the age or price of the vehicle be more effective?
Personally, I was heavy vehicles and gas guzzling vehicle to be charge more because they:
- put more wear of the roads
- requie us to import more fossil fuels
This seems like a reasonable move to me, not something they come out with often.
Road maintenace costs scale by weight and distance, not by fuel usage, so streamlining the purchase of RUC and shifting the point-of-tax entirely to a separate system rather than building it into petrol prices makes sense.
My only concern is that rather than keeping the shift fiscally neutral, they may use the restructuring as an opportunity to reduce the road-maintenace tax burden on vehicles and pull more from the general tax pool instead, thus incentivising greater private vehicle usage.
They are lying when they say it will be based on cost and distance. If that was true 90% of the taxes collected would be paid by commercial traffic. Instead they will make sure 90% is paid by you and me while those loaded trucks tear up the roads at 1/10th the cost.
It already is based on weight and distance for diesel vehicles, which is all heavy trucks. Whether the current system costs all vehicles properly according to their road maintenance contribution is not something I can answer, but the heavier your vehicle is the more your road users cost for the same distance.
I agree that it seems to make sense. I’m curious about how it will work in practice though. The current RUC process is pretty shit, I can’t imagine bringing millions of petrol vehicles into that process.
I know they have said they will have some digital system to solve it but it remains to be seen what exactly that will look like. Hard to do without GPS tracking every car 🙃
Simplest option for non-gps vehicles would be to have a monthly/weekly subscription for an estimated number of kms, then verification tied in with WoF checks.
Phone/web app.
Subscription based, with the ability to input “actual readings” whenever you want, with a cross check at WoF time.
Could also make it GPS enabled, but that would have major privacy and accuracy concerns.
The current system with ordering them online is good, but could be much better. Also remove the need to display your km ticket for light vehicles.
I wonder if you could get an odometer reading via the OBD port, and do it that way, without the privacy invasion of GPS tracking?
Should be doable with anything modern.
Ah yes I am seeing how this could work. Sign people up, start charging them based on the average mileage. Let them enter their actuals through an app/website. At WOF time, verify actual usage. And you could adjust the auto-charging based on actual usage (e.g. if they only travelled 5,000km last year, this year you split it to that amount - a bit like how provisional tax works for income tax).
Also remove the need to display your km ticket for light vehicles.
That’s on their list which is good.
The current system with ordering them online is good, but could be much better.
I had no idea when I was supposed to order another label until someone on here told me one of the numbers on the label was the end number and you compare with your odo. But if we don’t have windscreen labels then that’s not even going to work.
I want a system where I don’t have to think about it (like petrol tax).
It is easy once you are used to it.
But so many ways to make it easier.
It really isn’t, I’ve had a diesel car for a few years now, and it’s still annoying.
I mean there are hundreds of thousands of people across the country handling RUC fine, so I guess it can’t be that bad, but it definitely feels like it could be improved.
It’s mildly annoying to have to remember to go buy them and the slightly unnerving when you realise you’ve gone over. I’ve never got pulled up on being over and I was unwhittingly driving around for ~3 months that way.
In rural towns I’d say enforcement is passive in that they mainly rely on vehicle sales and other events to trigger re-ups. It is weird how many diesels have broken ODOs compared to petrol cars. 🤔
Yeah that makes sense. Maybe something that operates a bit like provisional tax, estimating based on the previous year.
The main driving force behind this seems to be hybrids, both plug in and conventional.
It’s very difficult to levy a plug in hybrid fairly, because part of their driving is on electricity, part is petrol, and the amount varies widely between vehicles, meaning with a set RUC rate, they are either getting stiffed or are freeloading, and no two are the same.
The fact that non plug in hybrids are so insanely efficient probably doesn’t help either.
This is one of the few good ideas our govt has had, I think.
We definitely want to discourage the purchase of fuel efficient cars that’s for sure.
Agreed.
It has been needed since the prius became popular…
You can get some extreme efficiencies for vehicles now. It is quite unfair on those who cannot afford the latest in tech to be paying the highest road maintenance tax.
The latest corolla gets 3.8l/100. If you are driving an equivalent one from the early 2000’s you are not going to be doing much better than 10l/100. So a person that can’t afford a new car is paying ~2.5x the maintenance tax.
I don’t think the gap is quite that big, unless you’re driving exclusively in heavy traffic, I’d expect somewhere in the 7l/100km range for an old corolla.
In stop and go traffic, the difference could well be double in the older vehicle though.
Gotta siphon more money out of the tax payers to pay the oligarchs
