MOTOR TAXES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 184, 25 October 1927, Page 7

MOTOR TAXES

THE ANNUAL CONTRIBUTION A correspondent sends me some figures he has worked out in a endeavour to discover the total annual contribution in taxes paid by a motorist. He has included licence fees, tyre duties, and Customs duties, the proceeds from all of which, he says, go toward paying the cost of roads. As a matter of fact, however, not all of this money goes direct to the Main Highways Board. Much of the Customs duty is paid into the Consolidated Fund. He is right in his contention, nevertheless, for his figures are of the amount paid by motorists into the coffers of the country. In this estimate the tyre duties and Customs duties are based on the new figures operative, September 1. The position in the first year of ear ownership, assuming the purchase of an American vehicle valued for duty at £l5O, would be that the following payments would be made in motor taxation: —*

£7S 7 0 In the first year the tyres used would be those on the vehicle when imported, and the tyre duty is thus included in the duty on-the car as a whole. Thereafter it has been calculated that the average motorist runs through a set of tyres per annumThe position in the second and subsequent years would be as follows:

Assuming that the average car has a life of eight years—a figure reached by recent American research on the subject, no local data being available —the following figures represent the average annual taxation in licence fees and Customs duties paid by private car owners. This table, of course, replaces the first set of figures given above: Annual licence fee .... 2 0 0

£l4 14 6 Tlie impression that the motorist is a lightly-taxed person, and is there-, fore fair game for new taxes, in the form of a petrol tax, is here seen to be incorrect. The hard fact has to be faced by a typical light car owner that he pays £l4 14s Gd a year in taxes. Further, it should be remembered that these figures do not even mention such things as heavy traffic fees —for some vehicles £4O or £SO per annum. Of course the users of the roads pay for them!

Registration fee 1 0 0 Annual licence fee . . . 2 0 0 New plates 0 2 0 Driver’s licence 5 Customs duty on car . 75 0 0

Annual licence fee .. 2 0 0 New plates 2 0 Tyre duty 0 0 Driver’s licence .. . . 0 0 0 £5 7 0

Mew number plates .. . . 0 2 0 Tyre duty 3 0 Driver’s licence 0 D 0 One-eighth of Customs duty on vehicle 9 7 3