Tax review: Pay as you drive proposal

[mik]

does this bloke have a clue ?, i don`t think he does, has the professor ever run a business? who is this man?

[ltd]

I think it has some merit, about the only good thing it would do is stop unregistered vehicles from driving on the road. But that's the only good thing.

The proposal is fundamentally flawed by the fact that road users are subjected to tax from two different government authorities.
When you buy the car, GST goes to the feds.
When you register the car, stamp duty and registration goes to the states.
When you fill up the car fuel excise goes to the feds.
When you hit a toll it goes to the states.
Insurance stamp duty goes to the states.
GST on insurance goes to the feds.

Essentially, you would have to get both the states and the feds to agree to forego direct tax revenue in this proposals administration, and like when the GST came in the taxes the states were meant to abolish were kept and in some cases increased. This is double dipping in the extreme and the populace would never accept it. Furthermore, who wants any government observing where you are going? The overtones of 1984 are astounding.

[STROPP]

well my opinion is its just big brother looking over your shoulder, they can tell where you have been, how fast you are/were going, dont think that some bureaucrat is not going to say no need for speed cameras lets save the money on them an operators and use this technology to its maximum, I have seen it before where I used to work with gps tracking on company mobile phones so dont tell me it wont happen. just my one cents worth cause thats all i will have left when they bring this in. Stropp

[balthazarr]

Originally Posted by Burnedout

Stirred up aren't we....???

Clarke has been misquoted by the media. I listened to him on the wireless this afternoon.

To tackle the main points:
His idea is that the trans ponder in your vehicle replaces all current taxes, including GST on fuel, excise, state taxes like rego, mysterious road charges which appear on your rego papers each year.
Additionally the transponder can only download a $ value to the Govt in order that they might charge the vehicle operator. It would not report where you go when you went or your route traveled during the tax period.

...

Privacy issues notwithstanding, this makes it appear far more reasonable, but it is flawed.

Why?

When the GST came in, it was with the understanding that the States would forego a raft of taxes/levies/charges in lieu of everyone paying GST...

Some charges (eg. FID/BAD) disappeared quite quickly whilst others are still around and unlikely to disappear any time soon.

If they do bring in this system, I wouldn't expect it to replace a raft of other taxes such as fuel excise, GST on fuel etc. - it will simply add additional costs to running a vehicle.

As for the whole idea of the device only downloading a dollar amount, and not sharing the location/time information - that won't happen either. Taxes/charges increase regularly - if the device has a built-in database of the "cost" of driving on each road and the smarts to total it all up within the device, it will need to be regularly updated as the "costs" of each road are reviewed.

[merlin]

Similar proposal in the Herald today wanting to introduce congestion charges in NSW so you get taxed by time of day for every km you do. What these professors fail to realise is most people do not want to be on the road during peak hour - they are going to work - a necessity for most. Our country is too big, for these types of Euro proposals. Idiots sipping latte's in the inner city come up with this crap saying we should pedal or walk instead - too bad 40km away from the CBD like 90% of us.

[ltd]

Originally Posted by merlin

Similar proposal in the Herald today wanting to introduce congestion charges in NSW so you get taxed by time of day for every km you do. What these professors fail to realise is most people do not want to be on the road during peak hour - they are going to work - a necessity for most. Our country is too big, for these types of Euro proposals. Idiots sipping latte's in the inner city come up with this crap saying we should pedal or walk instead - too bad 40km away from the CBD like 90% of us.

What makes it worse is that we have a hub to hub public transport system. If you want to go from the south to the west you must head into the city first, and then out to the west, not across town. This is why we need the cars. Further, these people want to tax to stop you from using your car, but they don't provide any alternative so you're taxed anyway. Far too many people trying to justify their cushy positions with crazy schemes IMHO.

[auxr]

This certainly has stirred up a hornets nest - believe me, should this come to pass, once big brother has a right to place a monitoring device in your car, he will be very hard to dislodge - imagine the money saved by not having to run expensive revenue raising devices - gone over 5KPH anywhere, bang gotcha by satellite

[jd dad]

has two hopes off getting up, the snivell libertarians will have a field day with it. From memory this isnt the first time something like this has been mentioned, guess natural selection has yet to catch up with a few I spose

[Burnout]

The thing that will kill off this idea is the states will have to hand over power to the Feds for all roads & road infrastructure in their bailiwick.

Can't see that - not this week anyhow.

[Burnout]

Originally Posted by ltd

I think it has some merit, about the only good thing it would do is stop unregistered vehicles from driving on the road. But that's the only good thing.

The proposal is fundamentally flawed by the fact that road users are subjected to tax from two different government authorities.
When you buy the car, GST goes to the feds.
When you register the car, stamp duty and registration goes to the states.
When you fill up the car fuel excise goes to the feds.
When you hit a toll it goes to the states.
Insurance stamp duty goes to the states.
GST on insurance goes to the feds.

Essentially, you would have to get both the states and the feds to agree to forego direct tax revenue in this proposals administration, and like when the GST came in the taxes the states were meant to abolish were kept and in some cases increased. This is double dipping in the extreme and the populace would never accept it. Furthermore, who wants any government observing where you are going? The overtones of 1984 are astounding.

From what I heard yesterday when Clark was interviewed on Radio up here; he said the idea was that this would replace all the above mentioned taxes & charges, so you would only pay for the Km's you were on the road. He indicated that first class roads would cost each user more than others and that developmental roads like those up here in Queensland wouldn't attract a charge at all.
Complete user pays system with those disadvantaged by poor roads & few users on the roads receiving road maintenance & upgrades out of proportion to their use.
This sort of taxation or toll would only work if Govt spent all this revenue on the roads infrastructure.
In any event it will never work as those in the transport industry/unions/govt & bureaucracy with vested interests will make sure it doesn't.