Scrapping RUC and paying Diesel tax at the pump?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Scrapping RUC and paying Diesel tax at the pump?

DickDastardly

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#233461 17-Apr-2018 10:31

Now we have Labour at the helm and we are seeing an interesting shift in Transport Policy (capacity improvements are being scrapped over Safety improvements, light rail, cycleways etc etc) I wonder if Mr Twyford will decide to scrap RUC and throw tax on diesel at the pump?

There has been talk of scrapping RUC for years, as the whole process seems a bit disjointed. Ive owned a diesel car and the amount of times Ive fallen behind with the RUC and then have to cough up a huge amount to catch up....surely fairness would suggest - tax at the pump....level playing field between petrol and diesel and streamlining the whole process....?

I don't want no sugar in it - thank you very much

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#1997653 17-Apr-2018 10:46

Not sure how it will work against commercial vehicles but as a domestic diesel vehicle owner (x2) i'd be all for paying at the pump

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MikeB4

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#1997657 17-Apr-2018 10:50

What about boats, compressors, tractors etc etc We would have to go down the track of different coloured fuel and there would be greatly higher policing costs.

fearandloathing

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#1997660 17-Apr-2018 10:54

RUC will be required for electric vehicles, after 2022 https://www.transport.govt.nz/ourwork/climatechange/electric-vehicles/

Geektastic

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#1997669 17-Apr-2018 11:07

MikeB4:

What about boats, compressors, tractors etc etc We would have to go down the track of different coloured fuel and there would be greatly higher policing costs.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows? The UK with many times our population and number of vehicles manages to police it adequately and I assume that they have examined, probably several times, the costs of various ways of doing it. Do you have evidence to support the claim it would cost more?

Alternatively, if you get rid of the fiction that fuel tax is just for roads and decide that fuel tax is just tax, which the government can spend on roads or not, then you can just tax fuel full stop regardless of where it is used by adding tax to the pump price.

I do not really see why farmers should get to pay less - they already pay only a fraction of what they should pay in terms of their polluting activities. However if we persist with that, it can be done by allowing agricultural businesses to claim fuel costs in a different way in their annual accounts or something.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#1997678 17-Apr-2018 11:24

fearandloathing: RUC will be required for electric vehicles, after 2022 https://www.transport.govt.nz/ourwork/climatechange/electric-vehicles

I don't see many people paying two or three times the price for a vehicle upfront, then paying $0.062 per km (plus admin costs) when the cost of operating an equivalent petrol car is less than twice that per km. This needs to be changed urgently if they want to get more electric vehicles on the road.

Assuming a $40k premium on an electric vehicle versus a new, perfectly serviceable basic vehicle, you might save $0.05 per km. Not many vehicles are going to drive 800Mm (megameters) in their lifetime. Mine won't even reach 100Mm, but will have little residual value when replaced, RUC would need to be under $7.50 per 1000km including all fees, to come close to matching the cost of operating a petrol vehicle.

fearandloathing

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#1997691 17-Apr-2018 11:39

Looking at Toyota nz pricing the ev premium is 10k to 20k corolla / Prius By 2022 it will be less.

davidcole

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#1997698 17-Apr-2018 11:45

MikeB4:
What about boats, compressors, tractors etc etc We would have to go down the track of different coloured fuel and there would be greatly higher policing costs.

Do we care? Technically our mower pays road users if it uses unleaded. And I don’t hear anyone complaining.

Surely the administration costs could be removed if it was part of the pump price, I guess for all vehicles bar those with an odometer in the whee (ie trucks). Send to be a natural separation.

Tractors should pay double just for the hell of it, having got away with it for so long. :D

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fearandloathing

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#1997705 17-Apr-2018 11:49

davidcole:
MikeB4:
What about boats, compressors, tractors etc etc We would have to go down the track of different coloured fuel and there would be greatly higher policing costs.

Do we care? Technically our mower pays road users if it uses unleaded. And I don’t hear anyone complaining.

Surely the administration costs could be removed if it was part of the pump price, I guess for all vehicles bar those with an odometer in the whee (ie trucks). Send to be a natural separation.

Tractors should pay double just for the hell of it, having got away with it for so long. :D

And it’s no different now for my chainsaw, dirt bike, watercraft etc.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#1997711 17-Apr-2018 11:52

fearandloathing: Looking at Toyota nz pricing the ev premium is 10k to 20k corolla / Prius By 2022 it will be less.

The Prius is a hybrid, so it is lacking in the most expensive component that keeps EV prices higher - batteries. Currently, demand greatly exceeds supply, and that is likely to persist for some time.

The Hyundai IONIQ was available as both hybrid and EV, with the latter costing $13k more at launch. A plug-in hybrid has also been added to the range, which would be somewhere between the two in terms of pricing.

Linuxluver

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#1997717 17-Apr-2018 11:58

DickDastardly:

Now we have Labour at the helm and we are seeing an interesting shift in Transport Policy (capacity improvements are being scrapped over Safety improvements, light rail, cycleways etc etc) I wonder if Mr Twyford will decide to scrap RUC and throw tax on diesel at the pump?

There has been talk of scrapping RUC for years, as the whole process seems a bit disjointed. Ive owned a diesel car and the amount of times Ive fallen behind with the RUC and then have to cough up a huge amount to catch up....surely fairness would suggest - tax at the pump....level playing field between petrol and diesel and streamlining the whole process....?

I agree.

Diesel is poison compared to petrol anyway (never mind climate change) and should be penalised for it.

Put the tax on at the pump.

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JimmyH

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#1997720 17-Apr-2018 12:01

I thought the logic was that most petrol excise was to pay for roading, and most petrol (with the exception of farm vehicles) was consumed be cars on the road. So it's easiest to just charge excise on petrol 91 and 95 octane, and except the small anomaly of lawnmowers and generators as inconsequential. The major gaps are dealt with by:

providing non-taxed yellow petrol for farm vehicles and other bona fide off-road users, and
not taxing 100 octane as it's mainly for aircraft (although I understand you have to pay RUC like a diesel vehicle if you have a european sports car and put 100 octane petrol in it).

Diesel is different. Most diesel is consumed by vehicles that pay differential RUC rates because of weight (heave trucks do more damage to the road than light vehicles), and non road users like farm vehicles and fishing vessels. That being the case, it's just too complex to simply tax the fuel.

Linuxluver

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#1997724 17-Apr-2018 12:03

fearandloathing: RUC will be required for electric vehicles, after 2022 https://www.transport.govt.nz/ourwork/climatechange/electric-vehicles/

We can't assume the policy will remain the way National left it.

They weren't serious about climate change anyway. Bridge's demanding more oil and gas exploration permits last week made that crystal clear.

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mclean

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#1997730 17-Apr-2018 12:15

DickDastardly: Now we have Labour at the helm and we are seeing an interesting shift in Transport Policy (capacity improvements are being scrapped over Safety improvements, light rail, cycleways etc etc) I wonder if Mr Twyford will decide to scrap RUC and throw tax on diesel at the pump?

Most RUC revenue comes from heavy transport vehicles, and so does most of the wear to our roads. On the other hand the large majority of diesel-fuelled vehicles in NZ are SUV's and ute's, so changing to a uniform diesel excise at the pump will shift most of the tax from heavy transport to those users.

That's fine for getting diesel SUV's and ute's off our roads, but it's a bit counter-intuitive if you want to discourage heavy road transport.

Technological solutions for measuring road use aren't far off - I'm guessing the present system will stay until we're ready to go down that track.

Fred99

13684 posts

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#1997780 17-Apr-2018 13:03

mclean:

Most RUC revenue comes from heavy transport vehicles, and so does most of the wear to our roads. On the other hand the large majority of diesel-fuelled vehicles in NZ are SUV's and ute's, so changing to a uniform diesel excise at the pump will shift most of the tax from heavy transport to those users.

That's fine for getting diesel SUV's and ute's off our roads, but it's a bit counter-intuitive if you want to discourage heavy road transport.

Technological solutions for measuring road use aren't far off - I'm guessing the present system will stay until we're ready to go down that track.

I think in other countries - AU for example - diesel is taxed at the pump, but there's an additional mileage-based charge for heavy vehicles, so the RUC collected could be balanced out by reducing mileage based RUC to compensate for the higher diesel cost, to keep things much the same as what they are.

OTOH there's the issue of rebates and policing off-road use of diesel - which isn't all to farmers as much is used by construction equipment, small commercial boats, off-grid or backup power generation, some home central heating etc.

I don't think there's an easy answer - except perhaps as technology allows then removing RUC excise from all fuels and using GPS systems to acquire on-road mileage based charges for all vehicles.

Fred99

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#1997785 17-Apr-2018 13:09

Linuxluver:

Diesel is poison compared to petrol anyway (never mind climate change) and should be penalised for it.

I tend to think that's a separate issue which should be dealt with separately, but with full knowledge that petrol cars these days with stratified charge direct-injection engines may be producing just as much of the most health-damaging nano-particulates as dirty old-style diesel engines. "GPF" (gasoline particulate filters) are being introduced now in Europe, to meet emission standards.

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