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State based EV road user charge (Overturned 18/10/23)
- Thread starter jamesgo
- Start date
doctorwho
Active Member
Its low hanging political fruit. EV owner numbers are small so there won't be much backlash. Combine it with hints of 'elite owners' avoiding paying their share of tax and it becomes a political winner with heaps of potential future revenue growth if EV sales ever take off here (I doubt it now)
Would be interesting to see detailed accounting of government subsidies in support of ICE vehicles. Surely they subsidise fuel deliveries to remote communities, probably also in equipment (bowsers) and tax incentives for the owners/operators of those businesses. There are probably many other subsidies we don't know about because they were conceived half a century ago and we forgot about them - and they were needed at the time, I'm not saying they should be cut now. But when making noise at the future oriented end of the spectrum, the demagogues reaching for that "low hanging fruit" might want to prepare for some unforeseen consequences of their knuckle dragger philosophy.
There's a very direct cost benefit to our choice of investing our money into exhaust free vehicles. In the absence of financial benefits encouraging the uptake of these technologies, we should all invoice our local state governments for the amount we are saving the public in health cost. $3200 per EV saved in direct health cost [1], and $8763 for the economic stimulus we paid for [2].
Alternatively, when they start charging the road tax, we issue them with a credit statement towards their debt with us. They initially get $11963 for the benefits we paid for in credit.
You're welcome, Australia.
[1] Cleaner and Safer Roads for NSW - Electric Vehicle Council
[2] Electric vehicle tax myth busted by new EY analysis - Electric Vehicle Council
There's a very direct cost benefit to our choice of investing our money into exhaust free vehicles. In the absence of financial benefits encouraging the uptake of these technologies, we should all invoice our local state governments for the amount we are saving the public in health cost. $3200 per EV saved in direct health cost [1], and $8763 for the economic stimulus we paid for [2].
Alternatively, when they start charging the road tax, we issue them with a credit statement towards their debt with us. They initially get $11963 for the benefits we paid for in credit.
You're welcome, Australia.
[1] Cleaner and Safer Roads for NSW - Electric Vehicle Council
[2] Electric vehicle tax myth busted by new EY analysis - Electric Vehicle Council
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If you want to look into Govt Subsidies you should start probably with LPG, from it's very low taxation to the exploration subsidies, etc
I guess the question really hasn't been asked is how is it going to be monitored? I assume it'll be self reporting as I can't see the other EV makers having the infrastructure to do any reporting. I also wonder if technically it'll just cover driving in the state or it'll cover interstate trips. Then once mining/farming starts to use some EV's they'll want exclusions for off-road usage as well.
I guess the question really hasn't been asked is how is it going to be monitored? I assume it'll be self reporting as I can't see the other EV makers having the infrastructure to do any reporting. I also wonder if technically it'll just cover driving in the state or it'll cover interstate trips. Then once mining/farming starts to use some EV's they'll want exclusions for off-road usage as well.
Details from Vicroads.
ZLEV Road-user charge : VicRoads
Buggers, they're also taking away my rego discount for driving a non-plugin hybrid.
ZLEV Road-user charge : VicRoads
Buggers, they're also taking away my rego discount for driving a non-plugin hybrid.
It is established knowledge that Australia wide, well over a thousand people die from the direct consequences of vehicle exhaust. In the face of that information, the politicians who continue to disincentivise switching to EVs should be held criminally responsible.
The funny thing about the SA strategy, is the government are spruiking that by converting the entire government fleet to EV it will help stabilise the grid and bring down power prices. I presume we will all recieve a grid rebate with the new tax when the details are released.
So you think there's a strategy in the mind of the 80kg of stupidity held together by a belt that came up with this nonsense?
Another potential legal hook into this absurd play is that the states are claiming this is a replacement tax for fuel excise which is a federal tax. So by its nature, it is replacing a federal tax. A court may well find that it is illegal for a state to implement a new tax on such grounds.
We really need to organise. Letters like this https://www.aeva.asn.au/files/696/ are nice, but they don't carry the weight and decision making force of a class action lawsuit.
Another potential legal hook into this absurd play is that the states are claiming this is a replacement tax for fuel excise which is a federal tax. So by its nature, it is replacing a federal tax. A court may well find that it is illegal for a state to implement a new tax on such grounds.
We really need to organise. Letters like this https://www.aeva.asn.au/files/696/ are nice, but they don't carry the weight and decision making force of a class action lawsuit.
This looks totally unenforceable. I either A) wont respond or B) will just outright lie. We have 2 vehicles registered. Totally plausible that we don't drive one.
This is like saying you can just lie on your tax returns, though. Sure, you can, and you might even get away with it.
I suggest, however, that risking the considerable punishment that might attach to this (could they do you for fraud?) in order to save $500-$1000 a year or whatever is not rational. There's all kinds of ways they might find out eventually - say when you sell the car, and the new owner reports the odometer on transfer...
I suspect states are within their rights to implement new taxes at any point they so wish. However, there could well be limits to that. Some ideas would have to be considered by a lawyer when this is contested in court. The court then may find that:
- the states are trying to collect a federal tax without federal authorisation to do so.
- the tax can only be applied to new EVs bought after the tax law came into effect, as otherwise this violates the principle of "legal certainty and predictability [1]".
[1] This is a fascinating read: https://lr.law.qut.edu.au/article/download/376/365/ I'm not a lawyer but can appreciate the concept the author is outlining of substantive law vs. policy oriented reasoning. For our case, read page 178 (p20 in the PDF) on the "Mapo" decision (the native titles act). Point 2) states that existing titles are paid for by the government (thus preserving legal certainty). In the case of our cars, when we calculated whether we could afford the significant expenditure, we factored in that other than charging cost and known toll road sections, there would be no other road use charges. Our total cost of ownership calculation therefore is askew through no fault of our own, and we may no longer be able to afford to operate our vehicles because of this unanticipated and arbitrary expense. This violates the principle of legal certainty and predictability.
This would be the same as retroactively introducing a speed limit of 40 on a 100km/h freeway and fining everyone who drove above 40km/h in the past.
- the states are trying to collect a federal tax without federal authorisation to do so.
- the tax can only be applied to new EVs bought after the tax law came into effect, as otherwise this violates the principle of "legal certainty and predictability [1]".
[1] This is a fascinating read: https://lr.law.qut.edu.au/article/download/376/365/ I'm not a lawyer but can appreciate the concept the author is outlining of substantive law vs. policy oriented reasoning. For our case, read page 178 (p20 in the PDF) on the "Mapo" decision (the native titles act). Point 2) states that existing titles are paid for by the government (thus preserving legal certainty). In the case of our cars, when we calculated whether we could afford the significant expenditure, we factored in that other than charging cost and known toll road sections, there would be no other road use charges. Our total cost of ownership calculation therefore is askew through no fault of our own, and we may no longer be able to afford to operate our vehicles because of this unanticipated and arbitrary expense. This violates the principle of legal certainty and predictability.
This would be the same as retroactively introducing a speed limit of 40 on a 100km/h freeway and fining everyone who drove above 40km/h in the past.
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RareEarth
Member
I wonder how long the feds will sit there and watch their fuel excise diminish while the states start reaping an increasing bounty from the 'road user charge'?
In the end the feds might just devolve the whole thing to the states. The states cannot constitutionally raise an excise but if it was all converted to a 'road user charge' then they could get away with it.
In the end the feds might just devolve the whole thing to the states. The states cannot constitutionally raise an excise but if it was all converted to a 'road user charge' then they could get away with it.
Further if you lie you will have to report the final reading at sale, and you can be assured that by then the price will go up. Hence by lying you’ll pay more. You are actually going to be better off overstating your odometer
I’m not a lawyer but States can raise taxes that are within their constitutional purview, and a road usage charge would appear to be one of those, even though their argument for it totally specious. Namely, that if Federal fuel excise revenue decreases, it consequently reduces funding for Victorian roads.
The problem here is there’s no direct linkage between the two. Federal fuel excise goes into consolidated revenue. How much of that is spent on roads and in which state is totally up to the Feds. The Feds could spend none of it on roads, or spend all of it building swimming pools in Queensland before the next election. So there’s no “formula” Victoria could use to calculate what a fair road usage tax would be in order to replace hypothetically “lost” road funding.
The non-lawyer in me reckons that Victoria would be on safer legal ground if they gave no reason whatsoever for imposing this charge. By attempting to justify it on the terms they have (linking it to a potential loss of Federal fuel excise revenue) that could actually be grounds to legally challenge it.
I don’t agree with the cited principle of “legal certainty and predictability”. If that was a universal constraint, then no government would ever be able to change any tax rate or scheme, because one could always argue that a citizen might have made a different choice about X, Y or Z if any future tax arrangements changed. Clearly such a proposition is absurd because it would end the ability of governments to govern.
@Vostok The principle of Legal Certainty and Predictability is an existing law concept and in no way absurd, quite the contrary, it's essential to the rule of law. It is fundamental to our ability to take actions that won't suddenly be outlawed. Of course you can introduce new law, but you can't retroactively impose that law on past actions. The cancellation of stamp duty and introduction of property tax is another example. Your property will not suddenly be subject to property tax if you bought it before that became law. Otherwise they would have double dipped on you (or they need to refund the stamp duty you paid when you bought the property). It will only apply to new property transactions occurring after the law has changed. The same should be true for the RUC.
Retrospectivity is completely different to this. That solely relates to making the effect of a law apply to times before it became law, such as creating a new offence, and then charging people who committed that “offence” before that law existed. Or changing some tax law, and then going back to recalculate all taxes incurred before the law was changed and demanding any differences be paid.
A road usage charge is not that. It will apply prospectively only. No-one will be asked to pay a RUC for travel completed before the law comes into effect. Therefore, it is not retrospective.
The argument that, if someone knew a RUC would be created in the future, they might not have bought an EV, does not make it retrospective, or invalidate a Government’s right to introduce it. One could argue RUCs have been debated for a long time, so everyone should buy a car on the assumption that a RUC might be introduced at some point in the future. It is no different to any other tax, charge or levy related to owning a vehicle changing after purchase (e.g. increase in rego costs) or new ones being created (e.g. needing to pay a charge to enter a CBD).
The same fallacious arguments were made about previous proposals for a mining tax, changes to negative gearing, or the proposal to cease paying cash refunds on ‘excess’ franking credits. None of those proposals were retrospective, as they applied only to future tax calculations. No-one should ever make a financial decision on the assumption that the applicable tax regime will never change or should never change in the the future. That’s a ridiculous and unworkable thing to expect.
My beef against the Vic proposal is that its premise is fundamentally flawed and that the “user pays” principles which allegedly underly it are not also being applied to the social health costs of polluting ICE vehicles, for example.
This whole affair is literally outrageous. What a disgrace.
Even the name shows the two-faced nature of this ridiculous and harmful cash-grab:
Vicroads don't call it "Non-petrol user tax". Or "road-User tax".
No.
They call it "Zero- or low- emissions vehicle" tax.
They. Tax. You. For. Not. Poisoning. Everyone.
This in a nutshell is why I so despise the tax. Not because of possibly having to pay a few hundred dollars in extra tax a year, but because it is such an unconscionable move by any government. Simply pathetic.
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