Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) told the legislature yesterday that he supported a planned reform of fuel charges that would calculate the tax based on fuel consumption rather than per vehicle.
Speaking at a plenary session in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津), Chen said he supported the move to a consumption-based fuel charge because it would make taxation more fair.
According to the Highway Act (公路法), fuel charges are collected to help pay for the maintenance, construction and management of highways, Chen said, adding that “it’s reasonable for people who use the highways more often to pay more in tax.”
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Currently, vehicle owners pay a uniform tax.
Minister of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) Mao Chih-kuo (毛治國) said he hoped the reform would be implemented along with the planned “energy tax.”
If this is not possible, his ministry would amend the relevant legislation and propose measures to launch a fuel consumption-based tax system by itself, Mao said.
Several lawmakers across party lines have proposed similar bills to support the reform.
The DPP caucus on Monday said that the government should stop charging fuel taxes, adding that if the tax is to stay in place, it should be levied on the basis of fuel consumption and be reviewed along with energy and carbon taxes.
Chen Yen-po (陳彥伯), director-general of the Department of Railways and Highways, said the MOTC generally agreed with the proposed policy change.
Chen said the consumption-based fuel charge scheme was very different from the current system.
Currently, the fuel charge is levied based on the type of car a person owns.
Chen said the current system is easier and more convenient. However, the more frequent drivers and less frequent drivers essentially pay the same amount of fuel charge, which is unfair. The consumption-based fuel charge is fairer as motorists are charged upon their purchase of the fuel, but it involves complicated calculation of the fuel charge rate.
However, he said the government still needed to resolve several issues before it could enact the new policy.
First would be to determine if the fuel charge should be included as part of the energy tax, or if the two should remain separate, he said.
“We will discuss this matter with the Ministry of Finance [MOF],” he said. “If the MOF can implement the energy tax as scheduled, then the fuel charge can be levied with the energy tax. If the energy tax is not to be executed any time soon, then we [the MOTC] will have to enact the policy to impose the consumption-based fuel charge on our own.”
The MOTC would have to determine whether it would be able to collect the same amount of revenue under the new policy to fund its projects. Currently, the ministry collects about NT$45 billion (US$1.52 billion) in fuel charges annually.
The ministry also has to ensure that the new policy does not affect the government’s plan to subsidize public transportation, Chen Yen-po said.
The government must also ensure that it can collect the fuel charge from fishermen and farmers, who are currently are exempt from the fee, he said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching