Tax on electric vehicles in South Australia and Victoria would slam brakes on sales | Trent Zimmerman
New road user charges sends a very strange signal and will set back efforts to reduce emissions from the transport sector
The proposed tax on electric vehicles by South Australia and Victoria, and under consideration by other governments of similar proposals, would slam the brakes on their goal of encouraging more drivers to use low-emission vehicles. The proposals are counterintuitive and premature.
Our system of taxes and charges is designed to serve a range of purposes. In this case there are contradictory objectives. On the one-hand, road charges and fuel excises exist in part as a pseudo user-pays levy for the cost of our road network. On the other, tax policies are often designed to change behaviour - to act as either a positive financial encouragement or, conversely and more frequently, a disincentive for a particular course of action. Taxes and charges on electric vehicles must surely be considered in that second category.
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