Electric cars?

[bi-polar]

Solar panel subsidies are motivators to purchase. Foreign oil is a drain , so to speak. And fuel tankers are 1 element in breaking up road tarmac. Govt subsidy for cars is not unknown in Aust. and it seems EV are cheaper to run. There must be some way ATO can get a slice somewhere , maybe from charitable taxpayers?

 

[qldfrog]

Not a dilemma, politicians do not give a rat ...the poors are the deplorables
And politicians know better
Tax diesel, tax tobacco, tax cask wine and beer
For the poors own good, but subsidies for the ballet not 1pc of the population can even attend..
Tax on ICE is a given soon, and as noone buy any new car, will be on rego or travelled km, and a photo shot with Greta on the news after the announcement...can not wait

 

[bi-polar]

, but subsidies for the ballet not 1pc of the population can even attend..

What rubbish , froggie. All road-workers will have 1hour 40minutes a week ballet training for State and Fed Ballet Man-of-the-Year with winner going to the overseas ballet company of his choice.

 

[sptrawler]

I don't think that's quite the point.

A mine can claim the full cost of fuel as a tax deduction, PLUS they get back the excise that they pay on diesel fuel, the reason for that is (they say) that diesel fuel excise is allegedly going towards roads which the miners don't use, but as has been discussed that is nonsense as the diesel fuel excise just goes to general revenue from which everyone benefits.

The interesting and chequered past history of fuel tax in Australia.

http://fueltaxinquiry.treasury.gov.au/content/backgnd/002.asp

 

[Smurf1976]

The interesting and chequered past history of fuel tax in Australia.

Basic problem I see with it is much the same as bundling network charges into electricity pricing. It simply creates an economic incentive, which may become an imperative, to maximise volume sales in order to balance the budget.

It would be silly to expect any government to be too enthusiastic about EV's so long as they're depending on revenue from petrol and don't have a practical means to generate comparable amounts of revenue from EV's. They'll support a few here and there for political reasons perhaps whilst at the same time hoping the idea doesn't become too popular.

I favour a proper resolution of the issue, such that there's no impact on the budget from changing the type of energy used in transport, to remove that situation. That's not me trying to slow down the adoption of EV's - to the contrary it's me saying we need to remove the incentive for governments to go slow.

Same with most of this stuff. No doubt we could make a lot more progress on energy policy in general if the maintenance of dispatchable generating capacity and the network itself weren't tied to a volume sales model which requires high, preferably increasing, consumption levels.

So I'm saying "get rid of things which give an incentive to stall progress". If that causes some pain now, well we're better off sorting it out and embracing the future than trying to resist it because we can't work out how to move money around, a task that ought not be overly difficult.

 

[SirRumpole]

The issue surely is to ponder why diesel etc is taxed at a higher rate than pretty much any other product except alcohol and tobacco?

That's the real issue. No other normal business input has a special high tax applied to it and of direct relevance there's no comparable rate of tax on other energy sources including other fossil fuels. Given that diesel as a means of generating power is cleaner than coal, and integrates far better with renewables, it seems a tad odd.

The only rational explanation I've ever been able to see is that it's effectively an import tax given that coal and gas are locally produced but oil is substantially imported. Fair enough, I can see some logic in that, but then we've dropped tariffs on everything else so it's rather inconsistent to retain that approach only with petroleum fuels and then not all such fuels but only some.

Go forward to sometime in the 2030's and fuel excise ends up as, in practice, a tax on the poor. Once EV's become half the vehicle fleet, those paying that excise will mostly be the poorer half of society. A few exceptions but in general that will be the case. That'll give politicians an interesting dilemma........

The excise rate on diesel is he same as ULP , 41c per litre.

The rationale started off as paying for roads, but these days it's just another tax going into general revenue.

 

[bi-polar]

Shouldn't be too hard to find excise amount per year that a driver pays. Driver expenses for Tax are well-known. Add amount to EV rego. Enter card number and click.

 

[sptrawler]

The Government of the day, will just introduce a new tax, increase an existing tax, or a combination of both to compensate for the loss fuel excise
The bigger problem IMO, is the collateral damage in the economy, due to the loss of ice engine and the associated work/parts/ consumables related to their upkeep. They are very labour intensive, high maintenance and compared to electrical motors extremely complicated.
This ensures there are a lot of people employed maintaining and supplying parts for them, they pay a lot of income tax and the gst on the parts and consumables wont be insignificant.
Add to this the fact that electric vehicles themselves are in their infancy, so therefore there are no guidelines as to universal standard voltages, standard plug etc.
Tesla has a different plug and charging system than Toyota and Hyundai, I had a look at the electrical car charging map for W.A, what a pigs ear it is.
Apart from the few RAC public charging stations, there are a multitude of sites in Country W.A, but when you check what facilities they actually have it can be anything from a 250v 10a three pin outlet at a caravan park, to a 65A 4 pin welding outlet in a fabrication shop.
So in reality how many different adaptors, chargers and paraphernalia would you have to carry with you?
The first thing that needs to happen IMO, is the auto industry needs to introduce universal standards for electric vehicles, then a network can be designed to facilitate the roll out.
This isn't going to be a quick and easy transition IMO
There will be a lot of money to be made in the future, having a a BIG battery/genset on a flat bed truck, ready to give people a $50 fast charge to get them mobile again.

 

[SirRumpole]

There will be a lot of money to be made in the future, having a a BIG battery on a flat bed truck, ready to give people a $50 fast charge to get them mobile again.

Or people carrying around petrol gen sets to charge them up when they get stuck.

 

[sptrawler]

Or people carrying around petrol gen sets to charge them up when they get stuck.

That would keep the dual cab utes popular.
Check out the size of a 5KVA generator on ebay, then you would have to sit there for 4 hours to get a gerry cans worth of charge.
It will probably be the new excuse for a sickie in the future, "sorry can't make it, my cars flat".

 

[bi-polar]

Outboard motor tinnies have a small spare to get home. A lawn mower engine with belt drive is the way to go.

 

[Jack Aubrey]

The Government of the day, will just introduce a new tax, increase an existing tax, or a combination of both to compensate for the loss fuel excise
The bigger problem IMO, is the collateral damage in the economy, due to the loss of ice engine and the associated work/parts/ consumables related to their upkeep. They are very labour intensive, high maintenance and compared to electrical motors extremely complicated.

I can't think of many industries where this isn't the case - and even the newer industries that promise to take up the employment slack are subject to imminent massive disruption from robotics and AI. Mines can already be almost fully automated (all those "Adani jobs" must be in healthcare or education where it is more difficult - or at least less acceptable - to replace people with machines). Farms, factories, warehouses, many shops and even food outlets will be almost free of people. Add to that the fact that electric vehicles and most household equipment will not be "fixed" ever, they'll just have the faulty component replaced, and the whole "Future of Work" thing looks pretty interesting. I think this is why many billionaire capitalists are starting to openly discuss the idea of a Universal Basic Income.

 

[SirRumpole]

I think this is why many billionaire capitalists are starting to openly discuss the idea of a Universal Basic Income.

Maybe it would achieve the same thing by cutting the GST in half. This would require less mechanisms than a UBI and therefore would be more efficient.

 

[bi-polar]

GST in half.

That's 5% of income , $1hour basic.
$6 hr Newstart single gets 30 cents.

 

[Jack Aubrey]

Maybe it would achieve the same thing by cutting the GST in half. This would require less mechanisms than a UBI and therefore would be more efficient.

If you have no money coming in, you won't be spending much.

Interestingly, the first UBI proposal (framed as a "negative income tax") was proposed by the Nixon Administration in the US.

 

[qldfrog]

Shouldn't be too hard to find excise amount per year that a driver pays. Driver expenses for Tax are well-known. Add amount to EV rego. Enter card number and click.

so that is in effect an incentive on high usage, excise at least is based on usage, and the more cars on the road be they ICE or EV is not really an aim is it?

 

[bi-polar]

incentive on high usage,

Absolutely , the more mileage the garage mechanic reports from the speedometer kms for rego, the more the driver pays . He may even offer double tax to Scomo . triple , heck blow the expense.

 

[Smurf1976]

The excise rate on diesel is he same as ULP , 41c per litre.

It is but it's a lot higher than other means of firing furnaces, generating power and so on - diesel's used for more than just running engines and to the extent it's competing against anything else it's mainly not competing against petrol apart from light vehicles.

I'm not against the concept of taxing mining by the way. It's just the concept of taxing one fossil fuel but not another that I take issue with unless it's part of a clear policy objective. There's a big enough mess with energy in this country without adding differential rates of taxation to it and in the medium term we're pretty much locked into importing more fuel not less.

What we really need is an overall approach to the entire energy question rather than this practice of a patch here and a patch somewhere else that we have at the moment. Sort that out then it becomes pretty clear what you should or shouldn't be taxing in order to achieve that objective.

If nothing changes and EV's continue down the track of being politicised then my concern is that they end up being caught in the same mess as everything else relating to energy where ideology and false beliefs take precedence over what is easily shown to be true. Then someone tries wedge politics with it all and it ends up an even bigger mess. I can see it now - wealthy EV owners not paying tax but they're using the roads..........

I'd rather neutralise government and politics to put a stop to that so far as possible.

 

[bi-polar]

I

I'd rather neutralise government so far as possible.

The castration process has many steps and should only be done by a person with training and experience with pigs. Male pigs are castrated using a disinfected surgical knife. A trained worker or veterinarian holds the pig and makes an incision above each testicle. The testicle is pushed through the scrotal sac.

 

[Value Collector]

The issue surely is to ponder why diesel etc is taxed at a higher rate than pretty much any other product except alcohol and tobacco?

That's the real issue. No other normal business input has a special high tax applied to it and of direct relevance there's no comparable rate of tax on other energy sources including other fossil fuels. Given that diesel as a means of generating power is cleaner than coal, and integrates far better with renewables, it seems a tad odd.

The only rational explanation I've ever been able to see is that it's effectively an import tax given that coal and gas are locally produced but oil is substantially imported. Fair enough, I can see some logic in that, but then we've dropped tariffs on everything else so it's rather inconsistent to retain that approach only with petroleum fuels and then not all such fuels but only some.

Go forward to sometime in the 2030's and fuel excise ends up as, in practice, a tax on the poor. Once EV's become half the vehicle fleet, those paying that excise will mostly be the poorer half of society. A few exceptions but in general that will be the case. That'll give politicians an interesting dilemma........

For some unknown reason people like to single out miners avoiding the excise, But it is all business that can claim it back if the aren't using it on the roads.

So in your example the diesel power generator can also claim back the excise.

The fact that it goes to general revenue is irrelevant, it was brought in to help fund the growing cost of roads, and people that aren't using it on the roads shouldn't have to pay the tax.

its just like cigarettes tax was brought in to help fund the health care costs of smoking related diseases, if there was a company using tobacco for some non smoking related industrial use, then I would be fine with them not being taxed on their tobacco.