Really is a tax grab

The ute tax isn’t just a tax, it’s a tax grab:

The sheer scale and cost of Labour’s ‘clean car rebate’ has been revealed today in answers to written parliamentary questions from the Act Party.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Jordan Williams said: “When this policy was first announced, we immediately labelled it a Car Tax that would have absolutely no impact on carbon emissions. However, it seems that we actually underestimated the real impact.”

“More than 100,000 New Zealand car owners could be affected by this virtue signalling tax. In addition, the Government is projected to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars more than it will pay back in rebates. There are simply not enough electric vehicles available – now and in the foreseeable future – to make this a revenue-neutral policy as the Government has suggested.”

The government has been attempting to spin the tax as a fee. Call it what they will, it is a tax, it’s broken  the no-more-taxes .promise and it will be taking far more form the people taxed than it will give back in rebates.

“Of course the elephant in the room is that this policy does nothing for the environment because transport is already covered by the Emissions Trading Scheme. That means any emissions saved by the move to electric cars are simply made available for cheaper emissions elsewhere. What is really promoting this is the tax boost to the Government coffers.”

Kiwis are encouraged to sign the official petition at www.CarTax.co.nz, which is about to click over 30,000.

Farmers and tradespeople are obvious targets for this tax but it will hit far more business and service providers.

Emergency services, country GPs and midwives, Search and Rescue, power companies and various local and central government entities including councils, the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) and Department of Conservation (DoC), need utes and SUVs for their work.

The tax might/ be a relatively small part of the total cost of buying a vehicle, but lots of small parts add up and impose more costs on businesses and service providers that either make them less profitable or have to be passed on to customers and service-users.

It would be bad enough if it was going to have a positive impact on emissions, but it won’t.  Compounding that, it will take far more than can be used for the purpose for which the government bases its justification which makes it not just a tax, but a tax grab.