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It seems that the Ministry of Transport want motorists to pay more tax towards the building and maintenance of our roads.

Apparently, the already colossal amount of tax lumped onto petrol sales and the road user charges (RUC) paid by diesel users simply isn't enough and they want more.

Silly old I was under the obvious misapprehension that so much revenue was already being collected from petrol taxes that most of it actually went into the consolidated fund rather than being spent on roading. Is this really the case?

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New cars, we're told, are simply becoming too fuel-efficient, which means that the tax-take from fuel-sales is likely to drop in coming years.

Sorry but I thought that a government so committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming would be pleased to hear such things. Indeed, I would expect that paying less for fuel (and therefore less tax) would be a great incentive for folks to upgrade to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Instead however, it would appear that government may decide that the environmentally aware amongst us will not be rewarded for their efforts as would be the case under the current road-tax regime.

But let's get to technology... If government were to accept the recommendations of this report, how would they go about ensuring that people paid their charges on a per-Km basis rather than (or more likely "as well as") through a petrol tax?

Well it's more than possible now to equip every vehicle with a "black box" which would automatically add up how many Kms were travelled and allow a charge to be calculated accordingly.

As a diesel user, I know that it's a bit of a pain having to pay my RUC by way of buying "Kms" at regular intervals. I also object to what amounts to yet another "tax in advance" where I may be paying for something I'm not going to use for as long as 6-12 months.

Surely a better way would be to have a smart system that could simply download your "distance travelled since last billed" to the petrol pump you're using at the local service station so that the RUC could just be added to your bill each time you fill up?

Yes, there'd be a set-up cost -- but have you seen how much money we're already handing over by way of vehicle-related taxes??? I'm sure that if the gas-stations were given a small commission on collecting this money they'd be more than happy to invest in the necessary equipment.

But no, my bet is that we'll be stuck with a paper-based system whereby you have to buy several months worth of RUC in advance and risk paying a *massive* penalty if you're caught driving without having paid for this in advance (as is currently the case with diesel).

I really wonder whether the bureaucratic and administrative overheads associated with a move to Km-based RUC for petrol-powered vehicles would be worth it.

What's your take on this issue?

Would a move to Kms-based RUC for petrol-powered vehicles be a good one, or would it unfairly penalise those who have a long-commute in an area where there's no public transport? Would it also become a disincentive to drive more environmentally friendly vehicles and thus reduce green-house gas emissions?

Or maybe government will opt for two bites of the apple: hitting you per Km for your RUC and per litre for the carbon-tax.

Things are perhaps starting to look a bit grim for NZers over the next five years aren't they? How will you afford to fill your car's tank with rapidly rising mortgage rates, RUC and carbon taxes all sucking away at your paypacket?

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

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