Road tax shortfall now $45 million

Press, 31 October 1984, Page 3

Road tax shortfall now $45 million

PA Wellington Road-user charges will continue to be collected by hubodometers, the device which measures the distance travelled by trucks, said the Minister of Transport, Mr Prebble, yesterday. The Cabinet had instructed officials to continue to work on ways of making the hubodometers more secure, he said. Officials had indicated there was a large shortfall in the collection of road tax. The wear and tear caused to the roads by trucks this year would cost $175 million and only $l3O million was being collected in road-user charges, a shortfall of $45 : million.

Changes to the charges were under active consideration said Mr Prebble. But the Cabinet had decided to accept the advice of officials that a proposed alternative of fuel, tyre, and annual charges was unworkable. “The evidence is overwhelming that not only do these alternatives provide potential for avoidance but the taxes would be essentially unfair,” Mr Prebble said. “Under fuel tax, for example, light trucks such as farm trucks would pay too much tax and the 39-tonne truck and trailer big rig would not pay enough tax.” Mr Prebble released the

final report of a working party set up to review the charges. The working party last year had uncovered widespread evasion of the charges and a black market in forged licences. It recommended then that the fixed costs of roads should not be collected by the variable weight and dis-tance-related charges but by an annual fee. In the party’s final report the officials said they did not expect evasion to be eliminated but believed it could be minimised if the potential for improving enforcement and administrative aspects of the system were fully realised. The Road Transport Association representatives recorded their serious concern that the present system was vulnerable to evasion and did not believe the opportunities for evasion could ever be satisfactorily removed.