Clamp on carriers?

Press, 29 August 1979, Page 6

Clamp on carriers?

PA Wellington Penalties for breaches of the Road Users Charges Act should be strengthened, according to a report of the working party on the new charges tabled in Parliament yesterday. It said that to strengthen the enforcement of the act and to ensure that penalies and provisions were appropriate, magistrates should be allowed to assess unpaid charges after the conviction of a carrier.

It also called for the imposition of penalty interest on outstanding debts and recommended that noncompliance with the act be

made a ground for a review of a transport licence. The committee was established by the Minister of Transport (Mr McLachlan) late last year to review the controversial road-users charges which came into effect at the beginning of 1978. In its submissions to the working party the Road Transport Association expressed concern over the opportunities for evading tax and the inability of the Ministry of Works and Development to recover unpaid road I tax.

The party’s recommendation that ’ magistrates be given power to assess debts and impose penalty interest

on outstanding debts results from this submission. The committee rejected other submissions from the association, including a suggestion for an instant-fine system. ’ Summing up. it said most carriers had adjusted to the administration and liquidity demands of the new system. “At the same time it was noted that there was scope for improvement at operator level and improvement at Government level, particularly in relation to the processing of refunds,” it said. ' Mr McLachlan said the report made no recommendations for big changes in the system and had not challenged the fundamental tenets of the scheme. This demonstrated that the scheme was sound in principle and that the Government was on the right track with road-user charges.