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

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#3400582 7-Aug-2025 10:09

networkn:

davidcole:

yeah maybe. I have a pretty low expectation of anything that will benefit actual people with changes in this process. I'd expect maybe a $1 - $2off the prices. now that it reduces to < $5.

Parking meters with $0.50 processing fees, ticket service fees, credit card surcharges are where I base this from.

So forgive my obnoxious response if you take it personally, but I think people would be naive to expect to save a useful amount of money and not just a token saving.

It isn't and shouldn't be about saving money. It should be about a fit for purpose way of tracking and asking people to contribute to the costs of maintaining our roads, which are a neccessary part of our existence.

Kiwis are going to need to come to terms with the fact the world is changing and as such, we will need to adjust to new ways of living and working. There are costs to be bourne of this change and there will be some bumps along the way.

As a current RUC payer (diesel), I dont have a problem with paying for RUCs, think PHEV owners are severely short changed by the implemenation.

What I do have a problem with the the high admin charges for each transaction. And I just don't believe it's in the Govt best interests or desire to lower those costs to consumers. Be that public or privately administered.

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smac

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#3400583 7-Aug-2025 10:13

Bung:

It would be a lot easier to spin recovering say 5c out of 70c than 25c.

Gotta say the coverage of the FED (corrected!) cost is bugging me. The media have made no attempt to correct Bishop when he says "about 70c". It's over 87c once you include gst.

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#3400587 7-Aug-2025 10:30

HarmLessSolutions:

That said I would be both surprised and disappointed if the petrol pump price dropped by that much. It would reduce the disincentive of running a high consumption vehicle so a windfall for V8s, DCUs, etc so an increase in carbon/ETS taxation needs to be part of this RUC system change to correct the balance in terms of emissions reduction.

One cannot screw up road user charge just so people don't drive V8s. If you want to discourage V8 your options are emissions tax, pollution tax, scale rego cost by engine capacity etc. Not by paying with RUC per km driven.

That said, there are some farm vehicles who might not pay their fair share of RUC anyway.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3400589 7-Aug-2025 10:36

Batman:

HarmLessSolutions:

That said I would be both surprised and disappointed if the petrol pump price dropped by that much. It would reduce the disincentive of running a high consumption vehicle so a windfall for V8s, DCUs, etc so an increase in carbon/ETS taxation needs to be part of this RUC system change to correct the balance in terms of emissions reduction.

One cannot screw up road user charge just so people don't drive V8s. If you want to discourage V8 your options are emissions tax, pollution tax, scale rego cost by engine capacity etc. Not by paying with RUC per km driven.

That said, there are some farm vehicles who might not pay their fair share of RUC anyway.

You misunderstand what I'm saying. A carbon/ETS tax on petrol is required but this shouldn't be part of RUC taxation. It is not the intention for RUCs to address emissions and these should be disincentivised by other taxation methods.

I don't follow your farm vehicles accusation and besides, if individual vehicle monitoring is adopted it should exclude off road distance being charged RUCs by way of geolocation data.

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snj

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#3400591 7-Aug-2025 10:53

davidcole:

networkn:

Wow dude, this is an exceptionally obnoxious response.

Lots of things have been implemented recently out of neccessity. You might have said the same of electronic prescriptions prior to Covid given they were faxed and there had been 20 years of angst over it's replacement. Along comes Covid and it's done and dusted. You migtht have said the same about replacing DSL with Fibre, yet here we are.

yeah maybe. I have a pretty low expectation of anything that will benefit actual people with changes in this process. I'd expect maybe a $1 - $2off the prices. now that it reduces to < $5.

Parking meters with $0.50 processing fees, ticket service fees, credit card surcharges are where I base this from.

So forgive my obnoxious response if you take it personally, but I think people would be naive to expect to save a useful amount of money and not just a token saving.

Pretty sure (I actually think I posted a source about this earlier in the thread) the admin fees on vehicle rego and RUC are based on the cost of running the system (i.e. the RUC fee and Rego fee goes to the system, and the admin fee is covering the cost of all components of running the system).

So, eliminating label printing and postage is going to remove at least $2-4 dollars from the admin fee (and probably help reduce the in-person fee if label machines are out the door and transactions are faster to process).

A large part of that is going to be NZ Post postage (I know commercial rates are cheaper, but it's $2.90 to send a letter normally these days), if you get other efficiencies in the systems as a result of removing the labels, then yes it should easily go down more.

But, I don't think admin fees will be completely eliminated or down to as low as $1, Vehicle Registration is $8.66 Online, $11.99 In person, so probably midground on both is going to be something like (online) $4 for Registration and maybe $6-8 for RUC. There are obviously going to be significant systems and staffing costs remaining (plus payment interchange fees/etc - but as we get open banking, maybe NZTA will open up to Online EFTpos/etc for lower fee payments and pass that on too).

Jizah

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#3400592 7-Aug-2025 10:54

SaltyNZ:

Handle9:

I'd guess there will multiple methods to pay for RUCs, just as there is with telcos or power.

If you have good credit and know how to manage your money you'll probably go for a post paid solution while if you are someone living on a tight budget pre-paid would make more sense for you.

I can't see it being one size fits all as that isn't how any other mass market utility works.

If a private company can do 1000km of RUCs for less than $12 a pop in fees then it's a win in my book.

Not if they charge 1% fee on all RUCs purchased. That'll be $10 for your 1,000, but then $100 if you go for 10k.

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#3400598 7-Aug-2025 11:02

smac:

Bung:

It would be a lot easier to spin recovering say 5c out of 70c than 25c.

Gotta say the coverage of the FED (corrected!) cost is bugging me. The media have made no attempt to correct Bishop when he says "about 70c". It's over 87c once you include gst.

Say what? How do you calculate >87c? https://www.aa.co.nz/cars/owners/petrol-tax/

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

PolicyGuy

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#3400601 7-Aug-2025 11:18

It would actually be very easy to eliminate these transaction fees.
Remember Bank Fees? You used to have to pay per transaction, but it's all gone now - absorbed into the (ever growing) margin between banks' borrowing and lending.

Here's how to do it: the government (NZTA) goes out to tender for provision of a RUC service. One of the requirements is that no end user fee be charged*. The tender respondents are required to say what price they will charge NZTA for providing the service. NZTA then adds that fee into the costs of the roads maintenance & development programme. If the fees are more than NZTA expected, then the cost of RUCs goes up from $76/1000km to say $78/1000km. If the fees are less than NZTA expected, then the cost of RUCs goes down from $76/1000km to maybe $75.50/1000km or stays the same and NZTA has more to spend on roads maintenance.

* a fee might be charged for 'personal attendance' transactions and some other special cases, but the principle would be "free to the user"

smac

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#3400608 7-Aug-2025 11:28

HarmLessSolutions:

Say what? How do you calculate >87c? https://www.aa.co.nz/cars/owners/petrol-tax/

FED is all of those fees bundled. SO I guess what they're saying is they're only going to remove the transport fund portion. Devil will be in the detail. I was coming at it from the perspective of what you can get refunded for off-road use (which is the 76 + gst). If they're only going to remove the 70 cents, there will still be a difference in tax between petrol and diesel which is kinda weird.

networkn

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#3400613 7-Aug-2025 11:47

PolicyGuy:

It would actually be very easy to eliminate these transaction fees.
Remember Bank Fees? You used to have to pay per transaction, but it's all gone now - absorbed into the (ever growing) margin between banks' borrowing and lending.

Here's how to do it: the government (NZTA) goes out to tender for provision of a RUC service. One of the requirements is that no end user fee be charged*. The tender respondents are required to say what price they will charge NZTA for providing the service. NZTA then adds that fee into the costs of the roads maintenance & development programme. If the fees are more than NZTA expected, then the cost of RUCs goes up from $76/1000km to say $78/1000km. If the fees are less than NZTA expected, then the cost of RUCs goes down from $76/1000km to maybe $75.50/1000km or stays the same and NZTA has more to spend on roads maintenance.

* a fee might be charged for 'personal attendance' transactions and some other special cases, but the principle would be "free to the user"

Let me assure you, there will never be a reduction of RUC even if the costs drop :) If it does, it's because there was another tax implemented elsewhere.

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#3400617 7-Aug-2025 12:08

In the interim, maybe some admin and the postage costs could be alleviated by having kiosks to dispense RUC certificates?

Put in your registration, select how many kms, put in your debit/credit card (or Apple/Google/whatever Pay) and it prints a label. Put the kiosks at appropriate locations, petrol stations, Post Shops (if they still exist in the future), etc. Charge whatever the label printing cost is ($1?) and add all the backend cost to the overall system cost.

Could use the same system for regos.

PSA won’t like it though…..

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#3400623 7-Aug-2025 12:24

Dingbatt:

In the interim, maybe some admin and the postage costs could be alleviated by having kiosks to dispense RUC certificates?

Put in your registration, select how many kms, put in your debit/credit card (or Apple/Google/whatever Pay) and it prints a label. Put the kiosks at appropriate locations, petrol stations, Post Shops (if they still exist in the future), etc. Charge whatever the label printing cost is ($1?) and add all the backend cost to the overall system cost.

Could use the same system for regos.

PSA won’t like it though…..

You could make it just like the supermarket self-checkout receipts.

Kiosk: Do you wish to print a label?

Me: *Presses NO*

Kiosk: Prints label

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cruxis

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#3400625 7-Aug-2025 12:27

Has anyone teared downed a eroad device? Can you spoof it to thinking your driving off road all the time. I am just wondering what sort of attack vectors might be possible, Does it have Jtag or Uarts ports to extract the firmware ? Asking for my friend Dave.

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#3400674 7-Aug-2025 12:41

cruxis:

Has anyone teared downed a eroad device? Can you spoof it to thinking your driving off road all the time. I am just wondering what sort of attack vectors might be possible, Does it have Jtag or Uarts ports to extract the firmware ? Asking for my friend Dave.

I'm sure it's possible, if you like paying 10x the normal RUC rate in penalties when your vehicle turns up on traffic cameras all over the road.

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waikariboy

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#3400676 7-Aug-2025 12:53

does anyone know how often RUC rates go up?

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