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Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

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Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#201

Post by lopmotr »

donaltroddyn wrote: post #20
singhrac wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every car has an odometer... one could think of a relatively convenient scheme where you can get your car inspected once a year at any refueling station, and tampering with the odometer is a crime. Won't stop everyone, but does it matter?

I don't think Odometers are reliable enough, especially as the basis for a tax. You'd certainly see an increase in average tyre size!

New Zealand collects road tax on diesel vehicles using odometer readings. It generally works for heavy commercial vehicles where the owners have more to lose risking fraud but I know private vehicle owners who would wind back or disconnect their odometer to avoid the tax.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#202

Post by zizee »

davidivadavid wrote: post #28
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

As a European, 13.1 l/100 km seems... insane. What's happening here?

This is because it is not correct. Australians on average do drive bigger cars than in europe, but the average petrol consumption of passenger vehicles is 10.8 l/100km.

https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/avera...

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#204

Post by lopmotr »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #136
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

Aside from an attempt to generate some inelastic revenue during a pandemic, I'm seeing very little talk of the other probable policy goal/implication of this change: that is to say, disincentives against cars and private transport in general with a hope to substitute to public transport. Like comparisons of Apple to Intel debates, this one is missing the clear other player in the room. While it's arguable about how s…

Isn't the whole argument for public transport that it has lower CO2 emissions per passenger-mile than private cars? Electric cars in a country with a high proportion of electricity generated renewably (24% and rising) could be better than diesel busses.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#205

Post by sampo »

mulmen wrote: post #165
javagram wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large family creates many future taxpayers. The state has an interest in subsidizing or at least not discouraging the creation of large families

That seems like an oversimplification. Rural states receive more in benefits than they pay in federal tax. Large families by necessity are going to favor rural areas and states. It is not clear to me how a large family is a net tax benefit, there are too many other factors to consider. Having more people pay tax does not mean there is a net increase in tax collected.

> It is not clear to me how a large family is a net tax benefit

Some of the children from a large rural families will move to cities and make careers that pay lots of taxes. Cities almost always have lower birthrates than countryside.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#206

Post by moralsupply »

loufe wrote: post #197
moralsupply wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is taxation on your savings. It's effectively the same thing as any other tax. Laws and regulations are the reason as to why taxes exist in the first place. The government holds the monopoly of force, therefore it can issue any laws and regulations it wants. Because of that it can have a monopoly on the currency and tax its people.

You're completely missing his point. It's not the exact same thing. If I made a million a year as a company owner or shareholder (ignoring tax evasion schemes) I would receive a salary or dividends (ignoring choosing to hold it alone) then reinvest that money into other assets. That can be effectively an instant transfer. I don't lose any money because my capital is in interest-adjusting money earning places, rather…

My point is that taxation is unjustifiable ethically. That includes direct taxation and inflation (under a monopolistic currency dictated by the government).

You can only justify taxation under an authoritarian standpoint (eg. "we must tax people so that..."). Going that way, whoever has more guns wins the argument.

Making a relative assessment of which taxation scheme is more "fair" seems to be pointless to me, in the same way it would be pointless to discuss what crime would be preferable given the choice of rape or murder.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#207

Post by lopmotr »

somesortofsystm wrote: post #16
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

I dunno, I think this is a pretty draconian imposition by a state known for its decadence in a country that used to like to think it was a leader in building new infrastructure in tough conditions. With all the energy resources at Australians' disposal, it sure seems off-kilter to not be rewarding those who chose to go more efficient. Would that there were Australias own local industry capable of competing with Tesla…

They will be rewarded. It's half the tax of petrol vehicles and the fuels is also much cheaper on top of that.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#208

Post by sjwright »

chrismorgan wrote: post #139
davidivadavid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, 13.1 l/100 km seems... insane. What's happening here?

It seems insane to me as well. My 2010 Mazda 3, used almost entirely on country driving with an average speed of 81km/h since I got it, sits at an average of 5.2L/100km. I recall figures from a couple of family members with similar or slightly larger cars on mostly Melbourne suburban driving, and they’re something like 8–9L/100km. My parents’ Nissan Elgrand (2007 I think?) hit something like 13–15L/100km before it go…

Back in 2010 both me and my parents owned Mazda 3 (model year 2009) cars. They live in the suburbs with no traffic lights for a kilometre in every direction. I lived in an inner city (CBD fringe) apartment. Their car consistently reported 7.1 L/100km average whereas mine consistently reported 12.5 L/100km average. Both would get the same ~6.5 on highway driving.

Point is, road conditions and driving style affect fuel economy far more than the marginal difference between vehicles of a similar size class.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#209

Post by myself248 »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #189
Aerroon wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one issue though. Bike lanes tend to require better road conditions for people to want to use them. Roads do degrade over time due to weather. This means that the difference between a vehicle at x weight vs no vehicle at all will be negligible. I don't know what the x is though.

the vast majority of road degredation isn't due to weather, its due to weight wear. As heavy vehicles travel down the road, they create a "ripple" on the road surface in front of the axle. You can create a similar effect if you run your hand across a loose sheet on top of your bed (you will see the wrinkle in the sheet in front if your hand). This bending is the method of road wear that causes like 99% of the mainten…

If that were the case, then roads would be almost equally bad everywhere regardless of the weather.

As a Michigander, the dictionary does not contain words to express how strongly I disagree with that implication.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#210

Post by dragonwriter »

moralsupply wrote: post #206
loufe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're completely missing his point. It's not the exact same thing. If I made a million a year as a company owner or shareholder (ignoring tax evasion schemes) I would receive a salary or dividends (ignoring choosing to hold it alone) then reinvest that money into other assets. That can be effectively an instant transfer. I don't lose any money because my capital is in interest-adjusting money earning places, rather…

My point is that taxation is unjustifiable ethically. That includes direct taxation and inflation (under a monopolistic currency dictated by the government). You can only justify taxation under an authoritarian standpoint (eg. "we must tax people so that..."). Going that way, whoever has more guns wins the argument. Making a relative assessment of which taxation scheme is more "fair" seems to be pointless to me, in t…

> My point is that taxation is unjustifiable ethically.

That's entirely dependent on your ethical axioms, on which there is no universal consensus. There are certainly frameworks within which some taxation is justifiable.

> You can only justify taxation under an authoritarian standpoint (eg. "we must tax people so that...")

(1) that's not true, and

(2) that's an instrumentalist/utilitarian argument, not an authoritarian one. An authoritarian argument for taxation would be that the existence of government, itself, justified taxation to the extent government ordered it, not that taxation was necessary to serve some social benefit.

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