Petrol Tax Sought

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32274, 17 April 1970, Page 22

Petrol Tax Sought

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 16.

A local body tax of 3c per gallon on retail petrol sales to supplant rates increases was suggested today by the retiring president of the Municipal Association of New Zealand (Mr P. Tait of Napier).

Mr Tait said rates caused more irritation than any other form of taxation. Throughout the world collection of rates doubled each 10 years, but in New Zealand rates had doubled in only eight years.

He said a petrol tax would be easy to collect, young people owning cars would contribute, and petrol would still be quite cheap. Petrol in New Zealand cost between 36c and 39c a gallon, while in Australia the range was 39c to 42c, and in London the equivalent of 75c to 83c

On the suggestion of a tax on earnings for local authorities, Mr Tait said he considered this was the' fairest solution but it was unlikely to find favour with the Government.

Unless the Government was prepared to levy a petrol tax to help rates, it would have to make supplementary grants, he said. The acting president of the

New Zealand Automobile Association (Mr T. M. N. Rodgers) said in a statement today that the Municipal Association was seeking the bonanza of a petrol tax which would tend to escalate local body spending without attracting any questions at the time of local elections.

“Two weeks ago the private motorists were stung by the recommendations of the Carter Committee on Urban Transportation, but they are now shocked at the decision of the Municipal Association to seek a 3c tax on every gallon of petrol,” Mr Rodgers said. “It has become fashionable to select the motorist as an easy victim for the tax gatherer. In spite of the fact that the Municipal Association’s president agrees that a tax on earnings would be the fairest, to get local authorities out of their difficulties, the principle of expediency has been adopted, because he fears the Government would be unlikely to accept this “He (Mr Tait) points to the need for young people to make a direct contribution to local body costs, but in allying them with the use of motor-cars he has overlooked the desirability of taxing them on luxuries, which the motor-car has ceased to be. ■“And because the collection of petrol tax is ‘easy,’ he plumps for that.” Mr Rodgers said Mr Tait claimed that petrol was cheap

in New Zealand compared with overseas, but overlooked the tax content, which was 12.3 c a gallon in Australia and 13.2 c in the United States. Mr Tait now proposed an increase in New Zealand from 18.1 c to 21.1 c.

“A further comparison shows that the rate of salestax on cars in Australia is 25 per cent, compared with 40 per cent in New Zealand—the highest rate on any commodity in this country,” Mr Rodgers said.