Essay by Eric Worrall
Aussie EV drivers in the state of Victoria are supposed to photograph their mileage for the tax man every year, so they can be charged for using the roads.
Electric car registrations cancelled after not paying road user tax
Wednesday, Mar 1, 2023
More than 240 Victorian drivers have had their car registrations cancelled for failing to pay Australia’s first tax on electric and hybrid vehicles.
The Zero and Low-Emission Vehicle road user charge, which is currently facing a High Court challenge, levies a fee on every kilometre electric vehicle drivers travel each year.
But one Victorian driver said the tax had caused her registration to be cancelled without her knowledge and she only discovered her car was not allowed on roads six months later.
Victoria’s controversial electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle tax was introduced in July 2021 – a move Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said was designed to “ensure all motorists pay their fair share to use our roads”.
The charge, raised to 2.6 cents per kilometre for electric vehicles last year, was introduced to replace revenue that would have been collected by the national excise on fuel.
A move by South Australia’s former Marshall Government to introduce a state EV road user tax was scrapped by parliament in February.
…
Read more: https://indaily.com.au/news/2023/03/01/electric-car-registrations-cancelled-after-not-paying-road-user-tax/
Why not tax EV chargers, in the same way gasoline is taxed? Or ask EV companies to forward details of mileage collected by their electronic systems?
I’m not a fan of EVs, but this is an absurdly fiddly way to collect a tax – yet another reason not to buy an EV in Australia.
That does seem a silly way to collect a tax, Has Victoria never heard of PhotoShop?
They have heard of Facebook, and monitor it closely to ensure that no pregnant women goes unpunished for voicing an unwelcome opinion.
Or photographing another car’s odometer?
Would you get paid if your odometer goes backward?
The Ferris Bueller hypothesis?
No need to spend good money on photoshop, microsoft paint (or whatever the Mac or Linux equivalent is) is sufficiently capable of the cut-and-paste operations needed to swap a couple of numbers around and “lose” a few thousand miles. Not that I’m advocating such. I don’t even have a computer, your honour.
It only seems silly, Prime Minister. It is, in fact, a splendid Civil Servant job creation scheme.
But the Great Reset and all your leaders (Young Global Leaders/WEF/Davos) want the grid to fail. Like YGL Gavin Newsom, keep the electric cars comin…No road tax here in Comifornia.
Yet.
For sure – nothing is sacred if the money starts running low.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
There are only two things certain in life, death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin.
I agree with the author of this artical .
All road users should be paying towards the upkeep and renewal of the roads.
In New Zealand all diesel powered vehicles except agricultural tractors are fitted with hub meters which records all mileage.
Road user mileage has to be purchased in advance and companies that do a lot of mileage can claim refunds for off road travel .
Unfortunately our socialist government has introduced an unlawful tax on all new utility vehicles to give rebates to those buying new electric powered cars .
If a government wants to encourage people to purchase new electric vehicles and pay some money towards the cost that is probably OK .
But to put a ute tax on essential vehicles that farmers and trades men need and who are keeping the country moving is shocking.
Of course all tradies have increased their mileage charge so their customers are paying the tax .
About time electrics paid there share
Just paid shy of 5 cents per KM (495 dollars for 10,000km ) for my diesel hilux paid in advance (rate reduced for fuel price relief ) if you forget to pay they get you at vehicle inspection (WOF)
Canceling rego that’s a bit extreme but typical for Victoriastan and comrade Dan
Hybrid plug in type what a problem for comrade Dan and the officious Vic Pol LOL
It’s not unlawful tax on the CO2 per km emitted. It was legislated as any other laws so is entirely legal despite what car boot lawyers might say
It covers every car or truck except heavy trucks
Just the more economical ones pay less and SUV types pay more as they are heavier
Low CO2 vehicles pay nothing or get a rebate , no CO2 which means electric get the capped maximum refund (paid for by the others)
You don’t like it but many other countries use the same CO2 per km measure …which is where they get the numbers from
Eg
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/buying-and-selling-guides/car-tax-bands-explained/
All operators of fossil-fueled vehicles and equipment everywhere already pay a “carbon tax” in the form of state, federal and in some places local excise tax. But you miss the point entirely, Duker. That excise tax is largely aimed at road use as well as paying for random government misappropriation of funds for unrelated pork barrel projects and social services. EVs usage must also be taxed at an equivalent level, whether you care about greenhouse gases or not.
There is no free lunch. Even if the entire fleet were EVs, government would find a way to tax them, and as heavily as they would like by law. Not just for road use, the tax rate would be set and used for anything else government decides it wants to squander public funds to do.
Yet another subsidy paid by people who work for a living to the buyers of toy cars.
“Yet another subsidy paid by people who work for a living to the buyers of toy cars.”
Says the man fine with oil companies getting numerous subsidies. Hyopocrite….
Maybe you could list some of those subsidies…
I hope you don’t count, unlike some crazies, less tax-over-tax-on-tax then other oil based products, as a subsides (diesel is taxed in France, but slightly less than unleaded, doesn’t make it a subsidy: unleaded has tax >100%).
Accounting is not a subsidy. Not paying taxes when you spend money is not a subsidy. Any accounting rule you are unfamiliar with doesn’t have to be a subsidy even if you don’t get its justification.
Getting paid (by anyone except buyers) to sell cars (like Tesla) is a subsidy.
Getting paid by gov to send gov stuff in space (like SpaceX) is not a subsidy.
Having some of your distribution infrastructure paid “the community” (like EV charging points) is a subsidy.
Not having to pay for hypothetical, unproven and impossible to quantify “externalities” is definitely not a subsidy.
“Maybe you could list some of those subsidies…”
Been there done that last time MIUMarkW was whining about EV’s getting subsidies. Google it, there are quite a few specific to the fossil fuel industry.
But here is a brief overview…
“The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs)found that the US government alone spends $20 billion every year on direct fossil fuel subsidies. Of that figure, around $16 billion goes towards oil and gas, while the remaining $4 billion benefits the coal industry.”
I’m willing to follow many links and read many pages, but only if we agree on the premise: what is a subsidy and what isn’t.
Do you agree we me on what is definitely NOT a subsidy?
Previous governments in the US could see that affordable energy was the life blood of their country .
They encouraged coal mining and oil and gas extraction which any sensible government should do to keep their economy growing as it has to with increasing population .
You now have a government trying to de,energies the US the same as many other stupid politicians are doing around the world .
All businesses in almost every country are allowed to write off unprofitable or non performing sections of their businesses.
When machinery is purchased it is depreciated over the estimated lifetime of that machinery .The same applies to an oil or gas well ,if it costs $10,000,000 to develop a well and it is exhausted after 10 years the development cost is written off as an expense against against revenue .
This bunkum that you have posted above .
Total crude oil used in the US was worth 546 billion US dollars in 2021.
This is before the oil is refined and delivered to service stations with their mark up and fuel tax added.
$20 billion sounds a lot but the retail price of all that crude would be over $800 billion .
A $20 billion so called “subsidy “works out at 2.5%.
Most of this $20 billion is depreciation and write offs which is perfectly legal and accepted accounting practice .
And BTW, you can only cite material that doesn’t make crazy claims and doesn’t use insane terminology like “renewable energy” or “organic agriculture” (neither of which has a clear axiomatic definition, or any consensual definition, or useful definition) without quotes (or implied irony).
Your website eesi.org claims there is such thing as “renewable energy” and so is disqualified except for the purpose of studying insanity.
The words renewable and energy put together are one of the more absurd constructs of our miseducated, uninformed, and really abjectly ignorant societies.
And any claim of negative health effect must be based on clear and convincing evidence with accessible, verifiable data. No secret studies. And effect must be consistent (across population) and dose dependent. Higher doses of pollutant must produce higher effect (unless a plausible biological explanation of saturation of toxicity can be described, such as filling up all receivers for a “xenohormone“; claims of hormone-like effects must be established by microbiological evidence and not thrown around randomly in the name of “precautionary principle”).
So many rules. Look, the bottom line is the FF industry (like many others including the EV industry) gets a leg up from the tax payer and many of those helping hands are specific to their industry. You can play with words all you like, but nothing changes that and that is the only point I was making… oh and that MIUMarksW is being a hypocrite for saying he hates EV subsidies.
Look, the bottom line is the civil “servants” industry gets a leg up the fossil fuel industry, the nuclear industry and all the productive industries that make modern society possible.
Fossil fuels = useful
“Renewable” unproductive industry = resource drain
The “renewable” thing has lived as a parasite. Careful not to kill the host!
“Look, the bottom line is the civil “servants” industry gets a leg up the fossil fuel industry, the nuclear industry and all the productive industries that make modern society possible.”
But that is a different argument and one I am not going to get in to because it will suck us down a black hole. Although I will happily concede, because it is true, that FF’s have been instrumental in the development of life as we know it. And I would be more than happy to continue with them if I thought we could get away with it. But…. the planet is warming and CO2 (from the burning of FF’s) it seems has a hand in that. So there you go.
You weren’t going anywhere. I tried my best to give you the opportunity to make your case, as stretched as it may has been.
I made up “so many rules” to allow you to enter epidemiological evidence into a debate on subsidies. One rule was only there to allow you to enter evidence that doesn’t even exhibit the expected dose response characteristic.
The “rules” were permissive. But you can’t just make any random claim. They have to show some consistency with real observations – you know, the real world.
I obviously shouldn’t have bothered.
Now you argue that arguing that some industry support society and other are a drag is a completely distinct debate; are you for real?
Oil is so beneficial its products are taxed at more than 100% in many countries, plus many taxes on road users. And don’t tell me it’s because of accidents, they also pay insurance. And there is tax on that.
And accidents happen in all sorts of activities, like cooking. That doesn’t mean it’s an “externality”.
If you want to be taken seriously, and speaking for everybody else here, I ask you to define what counts as an externality of some product what doesn’t, and whether food poisoning counts as an externality of agriculture, cooking; whether the risks of any other activity is treated as a “subsidy” in the name of “externalities”. Whether any article of the always complicated tax codes is analysed to find advantages given to some activity…
Take the nuclear industry f.ex. Do you know any other industry more strictly regulated? Any other activity less inherently safe?
If you want to link to any page using “renewable” without irony, you would have to explain what that word means and how it’s a good thing.
But the simpler, less general and more useful approach is to compare two ways to provide the same service and see which one support more restrictions, “regulations”, arbitrary constraints by the Power.
I’ve embarrassed poor Simon so many times, that it seems I have taken up permanent residence in his mind. Lord knows there’s room enough in there.
And once again, poor Simon takes the position that any tax that is less than 100% is a subsidy.
I’m still waiting for you to actually find a subsidy, none of your list qualifies, for the reasons I laid out the last time you tried to push your standard lies.
“I’m still waiting for you to actually find a subsidy, none of your list qualifies, for the reasons I laid out the last time “
And that folks is what MIUMarkW does. When he is stumped in an argument… he changes the rules. He doesn’t think they are subsidies and despite the fact the government calls what they provide to the FF companies (subsidies) he yells at the sky that it’s not fair. Hypocrite….
I’ve replied to your claims. Is it my fault you refuse to read anything that doesn’t support your religious convictions?
Simon thinks that allowing oil companies to deduct the depreciation of oil fields as they are used up is a subsidy.
As usual, Simon is either completely ignorant of how taxes work, or he’s lying through his teeth. Though both is always a possibility with him.
Let me try and explain it to the poor sod for at least the 10th time.
When a company buys and develops an oil field, that is a legitimate business expense. In a world without depreciation rules, 100% of that money would be expensed against taxes in the year the payment was made. In a world with depreciation, that money is expensed either over a fixed period of time, or as the oil field is depleted.
Allowing a company to write off legitimate expenses against their taxes is not and will never be a subsidy.
And true to form, poor Simon pops up touting his many times refuted lies.
There are no subsidies for oil companies.
Oh dear MIUMarkW is getting flustered. To help him here is the dictionary definition of the word subsidie…
“a sum of money granted by the state or a public body to help an industry or business keep the price of a commodity or service low.”
And now here is the list of direct subsidies to the FF companies that they receive to ” keep the price of a commodity or service low.”
Direct Subsidies
Intangible Drilling Costs Deduction (26 U.S. Code § 263. Active). This provision allows companies to deduct a majority of the costs incurred from drilling new wells domestically. In its analysis of President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Proposal, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that eliminating tax breaks for intangible drilling costs would generate $1.59 billion in revenue in 2017, or $13 billion in the next ten years.
Percentage Depletion (26 U.S. Code § 613. Active). Depletion is an accounting method that works much like depreciation, allowing businesses to deduct a certain amount from their taxable income as a reflection of declining production from a reserve over time. However, with standard cost depletion, if a firm were to extract 10 percent of recoverable oil from a property, the depletion expense would be ten percent of capital costs. In contrast, percentage depletion allows firms to deduct a set percentage from their taxable income. Because percentage depletion is not based on capital costs, total deductions can exceed capital costs. This provision is limited to independent producers and royalty owners. In its analysis of the President’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Proposal, the JCT estimated that eliminating percentage depletion for coal, oil and natural gas would generate $12.9 billion in the next ten years.
Credit for Clean Coal Investment Internal Revenue Code § 48A (Active) and 48B (Inactive). These subsidies create a series of tax credits for energy investments, particularly for coal. In 2005, Congress authorized $1.5 billion in credits for integrated gasification combined cycle properties, with $800 million of this amount reserved specifically for coal projects. In 2008, additional incentives for carbon sequestration were added to IRC § 48B and 48A. These included 30 percent investment credits, which were made available for gasification projects that sequester 75 percent of carbon emissions, as well as advanced coal projects that sequester 65 percent of carbon emissions. Eliminating credits for investment in these projects would save $1 billion between 2017 and 2026.
Nonconventional Fuels Tax Credit (Internal Revenue Code § 45. Inactive). Sunsetted in 2014, this tax credit was created by the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980 to promote domestic energy production and reduce dependence on foreign oil. Although amendments to the act limited the list of qualifying fuel sources, this credit provided $12.2 billion to the coal industry from 2002-2010.
Poor poor Simon.
No matter how many times his nonsense is refuted, he keeps regurgitating it. It’s almost as if he is capable of independent thought, but instead just keeps echoing what he is told to believe.
Deducting a legitimate business expense is not a subsidy.
Congress wanted power companies to develop ways to burn coal more cleanly, so they paid them to develop such methods. I suppose in poor Simon’s mind, the proper way to handle this would have been to just order the companies to develop such technologies, after all, he is a big lover of government power being used to control people.
Ditto the nonconventional fuels, congress wanted the coal companies to do something, and they gave them some money to do it. Big freaking deal.
If this is the best you can come up with, you really should just shrink into the nearest corner with your tail between your legs. Unfortunately you lack the intelligence to realize how thoroughly you have been bested.
I’ll try one more time. Here is another definition for you and you will note it includes the term “tax breaks.”
“A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy.[1] Although commonly extended from the government, the term subsidy can relate to any type of support – for example from NGOs or as implicit subsidies. Subsidies come in various forms including: direct (cash grants, interest-free loans) and indirect (tax breaks, insurance, low-interest loans, accelerated depreciation, rent rebates).[2][3]“
If you genuinely believe the breaks the FF is getting are not subsides then explain two things….
1.Why are they called “subsidies?” If the government didn’t want them to be known as subsidies they would have given them a different name.
2.Why are many of these for the FF industry only?
But either way you are simply playing with words which is what you do. It is blindingly obvious to anyone with a neutral brain that industries (EV and FF) are receiving tax payer support to ensure they can supply their products at a cheaper rate to their consumers (subsidies by very definition). It astounds me why you think it is OK for the one and not the other? My conclusion is there are two options. You are either so blinkered by your hatred/being threatened for anything slightly green, or…you are just simply a garden variety hypocrite (stubborn old man).
You are all bull simon .
Have you never heard of the subsidies that wind turbines and solar panels are reaping all over the world .
Then we have governments giving subsidies to people buying electric vehicles and here in New Zealand loading taxes onto essential vehicles that are not electric which is a slap in the face for the workers of New Zealand .
We certainly don’t get any fossil fuel subsidies in New Zealand.
Our now departed leader Jacinda on being crowned Prime Minister declared a BAN all further oil and gas exploration and development around the New Zealand Coast .
What a stupid action for some one who flew around the world many times during her reign .
If you ban fossil fuel exploration you should not use them as if there was no tomorrow .
New Zealand will be using fossil fuels for 100s of years .
Graham
First rule of entering a discussion is to actually understand what it is about otherwise you just look stupid. You just broke the first rule. I didn’t comment on half of what you just wrote about. You may or may not be right about the stuff you have written, but it has little to do with my chat with MIUMarkW.
Forget it Graham, Simon isn’t interested in an honest debate. His ego won’t allow him to admit that he has lost.
The government wants something done. The government offers money to anyone who does it.
If you take that money, it’s a subsidy. I guess your salary is also a subsidy from your employer.
Are you trying to claim that the cost of drilling wells is not a legitimate business expense? If not, then why does it burn your britches so much when oil companies deduct those costs.
Since oil wells are different from delivery vans, they have different rules for how the costs are to be deducted.
It’s pretty straight forward, unless your goal is to cover up how pathetically far behind you have fallen.
“Are you trying to claim that the cost of drilling wells is not a legitimate business expense?”
Not at all, of course it is, but when it is put in place to reduce costs specifically for that industry, so the end result is customers pay less…. it’s a subsidy. Read the definition, I provided it for you.
“If not, then why does it burn your britches so much when oil companies deduct those costs.”
I am fine with them doing that…. why wouldn’t I be?
“Since oil wells are different from delivery vans, they have different rules for how the costs are to be deducted.”
That’s right, but they also have huge leverage on politicians which is why they get significant subsidies that other industries don’t. Look I have no issue with the the concept of supporting necessary industries of which the FF business is one. But let’s be honest about it and allow others to get the same support from the state otherwise it is just elitist. And claiming EV’s are somehow different because they get subsidies is just pure fiction.
Simple Simon back again .
What you have posted above is typical green sludge .The figures sound impressive talking in billions BUT the total US tax take is around 23.32 trillion US dollars .That is 2,332,billion US dollars
These so called subsidies add up to around 4.6 billion dollars per year which is about point two of one percent 0.2% of the tax take ,and about one quarter of one percent of the US GDP. 0.25%.
You should try living in this modern world with out using any fossil fuels or any thing made using fossil fuels .
Get it through your head that fossil fuel will be with us for many hundreds of years and that this push towards net zero will never happen because the worlds population cannot survive without the energy that fossil fuels provide to grow food for 8 billion people.
Simon claims to own an electric car, I’m guessing that he’s ashamed of how much other people’s money he’s been given, so he’s desperate to make it look like everybody else is up to their eyeballs in subsidies so that he doesn’t look as bad.
I do own an EV and love it. I paid the full amount for it and received no government support in buying it, so your comment is rather silly.
EV owners should be honored to pay a little now to save the planet. If they don’t want the government tracking them they should pay a flat tax. Figure the average kilometers driven in Australia multiply it by .0026 and send in your check. If you drive less than that then you can look at your overage as an offering to Gia. If you drive more do the right thing and dig a little deeper.
Says a lot about the Victorian government to be honest.
Create a new law but have no real idea how to implement it.
The spin offs of this are also interesting. The tax I understand is being challenged in court. What will happen if it is declared illegal? Would this create a legal precedent that taxing motorists for the use of the roads is illegal in a broad sense? Can vehicle owners demand a removal of the fuel tax?
‘People’, under the guidance of ‘Experts’ come up with these laws, yet have no real world experience in the pragmatic implications of their laws.
All they are doing in many cases is taking action for the sake of being seen to take action. This leads to farce situations where it is actually impossible to comply to these knee jerk statements because the authors don’t understand what they are writing.
Case Point? In my home state the magic clearance between people for the Fauci was 1.5m (and clearly document as clearance between) The magic safe density for people in a public area was 1 per 2square metres.
Yet because oh how maths actually works if you are allowed into a venue under the 1 per 2 squared rule you are going to be about 0.65m CLOSER to each other than under the 1.5m clearance guildlines.
Cause.
MATHS.
Nothing “green” is ever thought through properly.
As long as it “feels & sounds” right, that’s all that counts.
Why do you think this is a “green” tax?
It’s an “anything the government wants to waste taxpayer money on” tax, ostensibly road use.
Wasn’t referring exclusively to the tax. In fact I didn’t even mention it. Just “greenery” in general.
As Tim Blair wrote years ago –
“nothing “green” ever works properly”.
Nick Sophist strikes again.
I hate you for making me agree with Mr Stokes. This clearly isn’t a green tax, try reading a post before making a stupid knee jerk comment. You’re right though in that “green” taxes are rarely thought through.
“try reading a post before making a stupid knee jerk comment”.
Safe distance for COVID according the place:
I have a hybrid. Beats me how they will figure how much I use the battery and how much I use gas.
Why not levy a special tax on ALL high mileage cars? That would be fairer. Don’t forget to include the weight of the car. EV’s and hybrids weigh more that their ICE counterparts and should be paying more road tax than the ICE cars.
The article has your answer: Why not tax EV chargers, in the same way gasoline is taxed?
This, of course, would require that home charging cables have an internal metering and reporting device (similar to smart meter tech) incorporated into the cable to account for charging at home.
The Aussies are apparently just going by mileage.
Yes. Plug in hybrids are 2.1 c per km while full EV are 2.6 c
It seems they will be rising by roughly 10% per year
I gather that non-plug-in hybrids are exempt from this tax.
Non-plug-in hybrids have a lot going for them. You don’t have to plug them into anything, and you don’t have to pay this tax. 🙂
I’m guessing the info about which form of power was used when and for how long is recorded in the ECU, not user accessible, but the correct instrument for connecting to the diagnostic port will be in the hands of “those who need to know”. If it doesn’t exist yet it soon will.
Here in the US there are some states that require an annual vehicle safety inspection.
Require that in Australia and include plugging into the diagnostic port to get the EV and hybrid mileage.
I lived in a state, Virginia, that required annual vehicle inspections. They checked the lights, tires and pulled one (Right front) wheel to inspect the brakes. Great make work for inspection service stations.
In Nevada and Utah, there is no annual inspection. I don’t here of accidents “caused by a poorly maintained vehicle”.
In Las Vegas the state requires annual smog checks still, even though the only reason we ever have “bad” air quality is from dust or ozone. Dust in a desert, why unheard of!! They just plug in your car. Far a diesel, they require an actual dynamometer test. I registered my diesel in Utah to stop spending on that one. Nevada will never eliminate the smog check requirement, again hundreds of jobs for an inspection that is of no use. 99.99% of cars are compliant, those that are not are either exempt or can be seen to be polluting while just driving down the road. Proper use of gubmint resources could get them off the road.
There was a proposal of placing exhaust sensors and cameras on multiple on ramps to catch excess exhaust emissions and direct the vehicle owner to bring their vehicle in to DMV to get tested. It was squashed. While driving in Vegas, the number of work trucks with UT, AZ or CA plates is massive. THEY sure don’t want to have the vehicles license plates recorded for months on end being driven in LV without being reregistered in NV as would be required. AND without meeting smog specs.
BTW, most of my miles on my diesel truck are NOT in the Las Vegas valley. Currently 80K miles of which over 30K are while puling my 5th wheel around the country, and probable more than 40K out of the LV valley. Being retired, I have no in LV commuting miles.
When I lived in NH in the early ’80’s, a vehicle would flunk if rust went through the body and make a hole.
Duct tape over the hole was enough to pass. (I think)
(There was a cottage industry were people would rivet sheet metal over the hole. It would last for a winter or two.)
Capturing road tax from EVs can be done via electronic monitoring. All EVs are newer cars and come with the necessary equipment.
For the moment a number of EV charging station are free. There would come a time when EV owners will realized how much of the carbon tax and other taxes they will have to pay for their unseen emissions
And add the actual energy cost to that
In my experience many of those the drive the virtual signaling device are worse than frugal .
When they have to pay for there energy and share of the cost of fixing the roads , the screeching will be loud and persistent
I would expect that EV manufacturers have the ability to “turn it off” if not paying road taxes? That would be fun…
Maybe they are so convinced that driving an EV is less expensive than alternatives that they deliberately decide not to pay their way. Probably a feature of EV drivers!
Maybe they can’t afford to pay as they try and flog them off in numbers-
Tesla Model 3 cars for sale in Australia – carsales.com.au
Predominatly private sellers among the 596 for sale you’ll notice. The numbers have been growing as 2019s come off lease or finance and the dreamers are reluctant to take the depreciation hit that occurs with expensive/lux cars.
PS: Just checking my link another 2 have been listed to make 598 so QED.
A bit different in UK and simply ugly. Aus is laughable but sweet
Every 12 months (you have the option of 6) a brown ‘DL’ size letter arrives from DVLA Swansea and, in much bigger writing than your address declares:
Tax It Or Lose It
It’s talking about your truck.
If you don’t cough up or declare the ol’ banger to be ‘Off Road’ they appear to have given themselves the right to lift it off the road and take it to a scrapyard/crusher.
Then send a hideous bill for doing so.
Climate is not the problem, the monsters inside people’s heads are the real issue.
When I lived in France I had low mileage insurance cover. Every renewal I had to go to an approved garage who recorded the odometer reading and sent it off. If I had been over I would have been hit with a surcharge.
Surely if Victoria set up something similar this would count as creating hundreds of green jobs
Of course, mostly the wealthy or upper middle class can even afford to buy an EV now, often with government incentives, and not paying road use tax lets them further freeload on the system at everyone else’s expense. To be fair, there must be a means to levy an equivalent road use tax adjusted by vehicle weight class.
In Texas and I presume most places, annual auto registration requires that each auto pass a prior annual official state inspection. If not done everywhere already, that could include the odometer reading in the inspection checklist, or better yet, operating hours. The state could charge a road use tax based on that reading.
In either case, taking a selfie of your odometer/operating hours or using the annual inspection, this could have the practical effect of taking many vehicles off the road (at least temporarily) as drivers would face a huge once-per-year lump sum road use tax, especially hitting the poor and middle class. Anyone living hand-to-mouth (about 1/3 of U.S. households) couldn’t afford this annual shock tax for each automobile unless they had budgeted and saved for it (most wouldn’t or couldn’t). At least with liquid petroleum fuels, the tax is pay-as-you-go, even charged for non-road equipment (from tractors to lawnmowers). To ease the payment shock, government would offer a monthly payment option, but politicians might not be able to resist making it a high interest financing plan. Fall behind on your payments, and government could de-register the vehicle or even repossess it.
Law enforcement would have to up their game to detect and impound unregistered vehicles, or have the auto-makers remotely disable the EVs (could be dangerous).
This is quite the conundrum. One alternative, “Pay at the pump,” would work for public or private charging stations, but anyone with their own charger or alternate means of charging (e.g., black market) could avoid all or part of the road use tax. Another approach would be for auto-makers to remotely detect and report usage based on operating hours or kw-hrs used and bill and collect the tax monthly. However, if vehicles (e.g., in the preowned market) could be operated independently “off grid,” remote detection would not work.
Any new tax is bad. Even for the elites. However, if we are to tax EV owners, the rate of tax should be tied to the metric that is the (global) concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The tax rate will be reviewed annually.
The CO2 rate currently, let’s call it at 514ppm Tax rate therefore for all EV (not hybrid, perhaps a lower rate for hybrid) will be 5.14%pa calculated on total klm’s travelled in a calendar year. The tax will be paid annually.
Example – 40.000klm annual travel. 40,000@5.14% = $2056.
The good thing is, as more and more EV’S are driven, and as NUT-Zero informs us, this will drive down the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, thus reducing the EV tax payable. Happy days!
“The CO2 rate currently, let’s call it at 514ppm”
Let’s not. there will be people even now gluing themselves to infrastructure after reading that.
Ha! – Yes I saw that 514ppm, but could not edit the post.. – It was actually a transposition of the numbers 415 generally accepted as the current concentration.
I say we knock off fuel excise and EV mileage levy and simply tax pneumatic tyres instead for the road network-
Tire Wear a Major Source of Microplastics, Say Researchers (plasticstoday.com)
Make the heavy polluters and hoons pay!
And let’s ignore “environmentally friendly” microplastic sources..
https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2021/10/19/microplastics-from-wind-turbines/
Thanks for interesting link. Yet another consequence of ecoloonery that’s been overlooked.
Oh Magoo, You’ve Done It Again! – YouTube
I wonder if a camera would catch black tape over the first digit of the mileage on the odometer?
Australia is trying to become a third world nation.
They are run by dingoes and dingbats.
Please don’t forget the drongos, they are the worst of all.
The easier option, needed to ensure the EV users pay a contribution towards road repair necessary for their use would be a simple price uplift on the electricity being pumper (or should that be sucked?) into their EV batteries. A smart meter would do that without any intervention from anyone and no camera needed.
I am thinking a charge of at least twice the standard kWh cost for domestic power would be reasonable….
I’d say 3 or 4 times as much, got to take into account not just roads but extra grid capacity and enhanced grid. Connecting Horsea 2 to shore is over £2 billion minimum
I was being kind. If the true costs associated with EVs was passed onto the buyers of such vehicles, not one would be sold
Good market for an electric motor driving a generator for charging the EV by passing any metering. My car has Android Auto, I can see the mileage with WiFi, I can see the VIN, what more do they want?
The real question should be why those in power think they have the right to know how many miles I travel.
Why do we accept Big Brother State ?
‘fair share’ gives those in power to know EVERYTHING about you.
They just have to ask Google, Apple or your phone operator, and at a push the Chinese.
Putting a tax on the chargers does not work. How do you deal with charging at home?
I have gasoline stocks at home for shortages and convenience, but I have no way to buy the fuel without paying the tax. Charging at home would be untaxed. They could ban home-charging but it would be unenforceable.
Great.
You got our money.
Now FIX the damned roads!!
Since the EV’s generally have a much larger carbon footprint given all the mining, rare earth metals, excess weight and costs of decommissioning they should be levied a higher tax than ICE vehicles.
For a while I was on an insurance policy that you self reported your milage. One of the things that kept you honest is if you had an accident the milage would be checked and if it was off by far too much, they may not cover the accident.
On the other hand, I need to get a smog test. Why should and EV be exempt from visiting a smog station once a year? They only need to record the VIN and milage and then they are done. Unlike me they don’t have to fear failing the test.
Having no registration would mean in the event of an accident, there would be no insurance coverage. Yikes!
Can road users driving on other state’s (non Victorian) roads claim a reduction of that charge? Do interstate EVs registered in another state get pinged in Victoria?
How do hybrid users calculate their tax (as they buy some highly taxed fuel and also use electricity – electricity which has Goods and Services Tax for Victoria returned through a tax sharing arrangement)
Better to register your car in another state
Register in another state- That’s illegal.. and you can be fined for not having your current home address on your licence…If you move you must update. No- you cannot claim a reduction and No- interstate drivers drive for free.
Maybe rah can pipe in as to whether this is still true. I have read that at one time, especially among the smaller northeastern states, they had a requirement that trucks driving through their state had to buy fuel in the state. The complaint was that truckers were driving through the state, but buying fuel in the surrounding states that had lower taxes. Troopers could stop a truck when it was about to leave a state and demand to see a recent receipt for fuel purchase in that state.
Taxes aren’t collected by the EV charger because most EVs don’t use them most of the time.
Daily driving is easily covered by just plugging into a wall outlet. The load is small enough that most electric power companies can’t tell if an EV is plugged in.
EVs only need to use chargers when driving long distances or if they don’t have access to an outlet at home.
If the taxes were my job, I’d scrap the fuel tax for all vehicles and pay for the roads out of income taxes. Good roads make everyone richer, whether they drive or not.
60km X 5 X 52 X $0.026 = $405AUD
Utah Motor and special fuels $0.364USD per gallon Effective Jan 1, 2023
Federal gasoline excise tax rate is 18.4 cents per gallon. It’s 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel
$0.364 + $0.184 = $0.548USD
If a car gets 26mpg then $0.548 / 26 = $0.021USD a mile.
But you have to figure the difference between currencies to get the exact difference.
1.00 Australian Dollar = 0.67653957 US Dollars
1 USD = 1.47811 AUD
Australian EV pay 0.01179266903 a mile more that a car with 26mpg would in Utah, USA. ?