RUCs to apply to all vehicles (incl EVs), replacing road user tax on petrol

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › RUCs to apply to all vehicles (incl EVs), replacing road user tax on petrol

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 83

4819 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3934

Trusted

#3126895 13-Sep-2023 10:01

MikeB4: Surely the easiest and fairest way would be to cancel all RUCs and include this in general taxation by an increase in PAYE etc or an increase in GST. If the later food should become exempt from GST

So you want people without cars to pay for road maintenance?

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

cddt

1970 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1905

#3126897 13-Sep-2023 10:05

Talkiet:

So you want people without cars to pay for road maintenance?

There's an argument for that. After all, you pay for hospitals even if you don't get sick, you pay for schools even if you don't have kids, you pay for police even if you don't call them, etc.

Not saying it's the right answer, but a decent chunk of the basic services in our society are already paid for out of general tax, so it's worth trying to define what should be user pays and what should be from general taxation.

MikeB4

MikeB4
18776 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 12766

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#3126899 13-Sep-2023 10:10

Talkiet:
MikeB4: Surely the easiest and fairest way would be to cancel all RUCs and include this in general taxation by an increase in PAYE etc or an increase in GST. If the later food should become exempt from GST

So you want people without cars to pay for road maintenance?

N.

Folks that don't own cars still use roads be it by walking, biking, mobility scooters. Also when using taxis, buses.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Qazzy03

545 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 492

#3126901 13-Sep-2023 10:15

cddt:

Talkiet:

So you want people without cars to pay for road maintenance?

There's an argument for that. After all, you pay for hospitals even if you don't get sick, you pay for schools even if you don't have kids, you pay for police even if you don't call them, etc.

I am child free and I see paying for schools with taxation is just the cost of being in New Zealand society, I think a case could be made for the transportation network.

One thing I didn't think of is the the Auckland regional fuel tax. The Auckland regional fuel tax scheme began on 1 July 2018, at a rate of 10 cents per litre (plus GST). That taxation is supposed to go back to the Auckland region, It would be interesting on how RUC would be allocated, could see some big debates.

Mehrts

1112 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 984

Trusted

#3126929 13-Sep-2023 10:59

Qazzy03:

My concern is about the poverty trap this will impact on anyone that is low income. Hitting anyone ranging from WINZ, Students, part-time / min wage full-time.

If the choice is between food and rent or budgeting for RUC.... I hope we are all adult enough to know what people will choose to cut from their household budget.

Ok, I'm going to be "that guy" and say that there is an absolute minimum cost associated with owning & operating a private vehicle, and if you're struggling to meet those minimum costs, then you honestly really can't afford that mode of transport. That's the blunt truth.

While public transport would be good for these people in an ideal world, it just currently isn't suitable for every day reliability. Hence why so many people are driving round in non-WOF'd/Reg'd/Insured cars with the fuel lights on.

I don't have the answers to help these people, and RUC will be a challenge for them, but the cost of petrol would decrease at least.

MikeB4

MikeB4
18776 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 12766

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#3126937 13-Sep-2023 11:16

From personal experience public transport is an absolute nightmare for the disabled.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

BlueShift

1692 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 969

#3126940 13-Sep-2023 11:18

cddt:

Talkiet:

So you want people without cars to pay for road maintenance?

There's an argument for that. After all, you pay for hospitals even if you don't get sick, you pay for schools even if you don't have kids, you pay for police even if you don't call them, etc.

Not saying it's the right answer, but a decent chunk of the basic services in our society are already paid for out of general tax, so it's worth trying to define what should be user pays and what should be from general taxation.

Roading can be argued as a societal benefit - if you don't own a car, you still benefit from roads existing. You purchase food and other items transported on the road network. If you take a bus or taxi, it uses the roads. Police, ambulance, fire service, many other government and local government services rely on the roads to deliver.

If we are concerned about environmental issues or vehicle sizes, these can be addressed by adding on fuel taxes to reduce carbon emissions, or increasing rego fees to reduce the attractiveness of specific categories of vehicle.

Qazzy03

545 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 492

#3126942 13-Sep-2023 11:22

Mehrts:

Ok, I'm going to be "that guy" and say that there is an absolute minimum cost associated with owning & operating a private vehicle, and if you're struggling to meet those minimum costs, then you honestly really can't afford that mode of transport. That's the blunt truth.

While public transport would be good for these people in an ideal world, it just currently isn't suitable for every day reliability. Hence why so many people are driving round in non-WOF'd/Reg'd/Insured cars with the fuel lights on.

I don't have the answers to help these people, and RUC will be a challenge for them, but the cost of petrol would decrease at least.

I don't think you are "that guy", if the world was fair and everyone followed the letter and intent you would be 100% correct.

I think you are reasonable with that view and you also acknowledge that "people are driving round in non-WOF'd/Reg'd/Insured cars with the fuel lights on". I don't have the answers either, in 5-10 years time it could be as natural as not having supermarket plastic bags.

afe66

3181 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1678

Lifetime subscriber

#3126944 13-Sep-2023 11:23

I prefer the current system, tax collected and minimal effort on my part. Handling fees will creep up because they always do. ie look at concert tickets.

Those who cant pay or are financially illiterate will struggle ok petrol will be cheaper but that only works if the saved money from petrol is saved towards ruc to pay at later stage.

Everyone here probably has a pc and a printer at home....Im sure printing those tickets at the petrol station for example will have another handling fee attached to it - got to pay for the terminal after all and associated costs after all

How big a problem is this? OK tax take maybe going down but is this because of evil electric cars not paying their way (Chap at work - despite paying more gst as more expensive), or maybe we are buying better cars.

The weight limits will be fiddled to ensure the farming/ute types will be treated the same as small fuel efficient cars.

I thought we were trying to encourage fuel efficient cars smaller easier to park more modern safety equipment etc. Isnt that supposed to be was we are doing for climate change and improving the environment?

Cheap fuel but fixed km charge will just encourage large ("fun") inefficient (old?) cars to be continued to be used...look at USA sized cars

On road costs - are we saying they we _really_ believe the cash from RUC wont just be dumped into the government coffers....

it wont be ring fenced for roads.

You pay to use the car so some landlord will claim back tax on his rental property...(or subsidise ppl with too many children - if you want to swing politics the other way)

Hey either way it wont affect me.

cruxis

512 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 346

#3126975 13-Sep-2023 12:08

Hope they don't intend to use a vehicles odometer, something that the owner has full control over and access to that is just dumb. Even back in 2011 the police said hacking was rife among diesels and the penalty might be up to 7 years prison. Also if done with good opsec it can be so hard to detect, especially the ratio hack mods from superkilometerfilter.

It was a problem way back in 2011. I bet it is worse now with cost of living.

Stamping out diesel odometer meddling | Stuff.co.nz

Maybe General Taxation is the way to go.

smac

338 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 40

#3126978 13-Sep-2023 12:14

cruxis:

Hope they don't intend to use a vehicles odometer, something that the owner has full control over and access to that is just dumb. Even back in 2011 the police said hacking was rife among diesels and the penalty might be up to 7 years prison. Also if done with good opsec it can be so hard to detect, especially the ratio hack mods from superkilometerfilter.

It was a problem way back in 2011. I bet it is worse now with cost of living.

Stamping out diesel odometer meddling | Stuff.co.nz

Maybe General Taxation is the way to go.

Any short term solution would be odo based. So yes there's fraud, but on a tiny tiny scale compared to the whole market. People on this forum look at stuff like that and think "hey that's cool, I could do that...", but lets face it, we're not a representative sample of the population! Also good luck to you if the RUC compliance unit ever get their claws into you, ask a couple dodgy haulage companies!

However in the longer term they will move to electronic monitoring, which the heavy vehicle industry have been utilising for years (eg e-road). The advantage of this is they can cover RUC, congestion charges, and tolling all with one solution.

Apple TV

Stream your favourite shows now on Apple TV (affiliate link).

Senecio

2856 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3166

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3127033 13-Sep-2023 12:59

Talkiet:

MikeB4: Surely the easiest and fairest way would be to cancel all RUCs and include this in general taxation by an increase in PAYE etc or an increase in GST. If the later food should become exempt from GST

So you want people without cars to pay for road maintenance?

N.

I don't have any kids but my taxes go towards education, and I'm not complaining about. Its a standard expectation that my taxes go towards funding public infrastructure, whether I use that infrastructure or not is irrelevant.

scuwp

3927 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2510

#3127037 13-Sep-2023 13:12

Good discussion!

I think most of my thoughts have already been covered but a couple of additions.

Firstly, there is already a plan to phase out physical RUC labels, everything can be done via ANPR or online apps (once developed). This will reduce a heap of costs and compliance burden. https://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/RUC-2022-A3.pdf

I am in favor of some kind of monthly or annual fee rather than fiddling about with pay-as-you-go, simply because of ease of evasion and compliance costs of the latter. As mentioned before it's not hard to fudge your distance reading, and difficult to detect. This of course won't suite everyone, but some carefully designed registration categories could moderate things a bit.

I do like the idea that roading could be funded out of general taxation. Driver or not, all of society benefits from the transport system. I have no idea what the $$ looks like but it could be as simple as bump GST by 2% and job done? This would be a big step change and a brave government to implement, but is inevitable at some point in the future I think.

What some of the commentary around National's plan to put all vehicles onto a RUC system seems to overlook, is that the tax will come off petrol, so it isn't an additional cost, simply the same cost paid another way.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

olivernz

512 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 177

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3127103 13-Sep-2023 13:50

By the way you know how much EVs contribute to the economy and unnecessary taxation in saved petrol? I think NZ spends about $4.3bn a year in importing petrol. Getting that number lower means more money stays in NZ and can be spent inside our borders creating wealth. Few people see this aspect of EVs. The electricity cost per KM driven is far less than petrol and is still paid to organisations within our borders. Basically we become our own Saudis. Never mind what EVs contribute to our 2050 Kyoto goals. Without EVs this will be really hard to achieve. I think EVs are the one of the cheapest ways for the govt to drop CO2 emissions in NZ (although they are only a part of the solution). And yes, EVs should pay RUC. Changing the system wholesale, as proposed, sets the wrong incentives.

And I like the discussion about public transport. As a voter I do not accept any stance on roading or car related legislation rhetoric without a clear take on how public transport is improved. As pointed out, whatever we do it generally hits those without means or those with limitations the hardest. We should ALL be interested in helping those with less be able to sustain themselves in every way. Our future inevitably lies in public transport and it needs to become better. Much better actually and govt needs to invest. It is a public good worth having. I have an EV and it's great but I still take the train to work. I'd love to get rid of my second petrol car that I just need to get to the train just because public transport is unavailable or partchy. I'd also be fine with giving up all individual transportation for public transport but then it needs to be a viable alternative and we're far from that being a reality. My wife and I have lived 2.5y without any personal mobility when we lived in Wellington just using bus, taxi and rentals. It worked until kids came along and the places we needed to go then were no longer aligned to public transport. By the way it was far cheaper than the car ownership model we had before and after 2-3w of initial issues the way we did movement around town adjusted and it was no longer an issue.

Also one thing I keep getting more and more aware of due to the struggles my parents have. Once you get over 65 anything process wise and especially digital can become an issue. So while digital RUC and other clever solutions may be a panacea there needs to be an alternative that is accessible.

BlargHonk

176 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 131

#3127107 13-Sep-2023 13:54

Senecio:

I don't have any kids but my taxes go towards education

For the people that complain about this, I like to remind them that they themselves received a taxpayer funded education, they are just paying for it now through taxes.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 83