Death - and Taxes !

That hoary old witticism that the only certainty in life - is "Death and Taxes " -  certainly applies to the family car.    It's taxed to death by both the State and Federal government and has been a prize milking cow every time the Treasuries have a desperate new need for cash.

The tax take is endless.  Driving licenses.  Registration.   Third party Insurance.  Petrol tax.  Speeding fines.   Road tolls.  And of course we also have the GST as an added measure to skim off a further ten percent - as a tax on a tax,

Now a review committee has come up with a new plan to spread the tax load.  It is suggested that it would be "fairer "if all these taxes were "reduced "and replaced with a "distance tax "on all the state's roads.   The rate of tax would be geared to the degree of congestion, the time of day and the type and size of the vehicle being driven.  This would provide an incentive for drivers to be selective about the route taken and to avoid peaks in favour of lower taxed times of the day and night.

Presumably, every car would need to be fitted with a toll transponder and roads would measure the traffic flow with a reader to tick up the distance each car travels each month and calculate the bill by a measure of distance x road rate x time factor.    According to this suggestion, a little old lady who drives to the shopping centre once a week would pay almost nothing, while a heavy road user would be slugged for the damage his or her car is doing to the road system and the congestion it is causing.

The proposers are careful to claim that this would not be an increased tax.   It would merely displace parts of the old tax system in favour of a tax that measures actual car use against the static fees presently imposed on all vehicles, irrespective of how and when they are used.

It seems that taxpayers are cynical when it comes to changes to the tax system - and for that they have good reason.  Income tax was first imposed by Julius Caesar back in the time of the Roman empire, but it was short lived because the citizens devised countless strategies  to avoid paying.   It reappeared in 1799 in Britain as a "temporary tax"  - at the rate of two pennies in each pound earned - to help pay for arms and equipment used in the French revolutionary war.  Many of the myriad taxes that make life difficult are similar "temporary "taxes imposed during the first and second world wars - that gained permanency because governments are addicted to money.

Whatever system applies to the taxing of transport and the road system we can be sure that the level collected will not decrease - and there is every assumption that the tax take will need to increase to provide the road network that our growing population urgently needs.   There are obvious anomalies in introducing a distance based road tax regime, not the least of which is the cost of setting up the recording of every vehicles travel on every highway, road and street in the country.

As things stand, the private owner of the family car clearly subsidizes the commercial cost of the business fleets that keep goods in our shops and supermarkets.  Once the tax take reverts to distance travelled we will see that reflected in the price increase of goods - and consequently any savings will be nullified.

Redistributing the tax load seems to be a variation of the three shells and a pea trick.   What you expect - and what you get - invariable turn out to be very different to your expectations.   This is probably a very good theoretical idea - but don't expect the final bill for having and using a car to be any lower !