Starting today, drivers who are on the watch list of the Administrative Enforcement Agency under Ministry of Justice for unpaid freeway toll fees can now pay them at convenience stores nationwide without any processing charges, the Freeway Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau and the agency jointly announced the measure at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
According to the bureau, the total amount of accumulated unpaid tolls have topped NT$800 million (US$26.3 million). Half of that amount in unpaid fees are now being collected by the agency.
Each year, the nation has, on average, about 30,000 drivers who accumulate unpaid toll fees, leading the fees to increase by NT$140 million annually, the bureau said.
Drivers who are on the watch list of the Administrative Enforcement Agency for unpaid tolls can choose to pay the fees at the branch offices of the agency and the bureau nationwide or wire the money into a designated bank account.
To make it easier for drivers to make payment, the bureau and the agency then worked to allow drivers to pay the fees they owe at convenience stores — including 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, Hi-Life, OK and Simple Mart — without having to pay processing charges, provided that the amount paid is under NT$20,000.
Drivers must also use payment sheets they receive from the Administrative Enforcement Agency, which have barcodes printed on them, the bureau said.
Bureau deputy director general Wu Mu-fu (吳木富) said that it is obligated to pass on cases of drivers who have NT$300 or more in unpaid freeway toll fees to the Administrative Enforcement Agency within five years after drivers have been notified about default charge and overdue payments.
Statistics from the bureau said that the nation has 30 cases where vehicle owners owe more than NT$300,000 in toll fees. Two are individual drivers, and 28 are transportation or logistics firms. The top five entities with unpaid toll fees are transportation business companies, with the single highest unpaid fee totaling NT$3.64 million, the bureau said.
In addition to allowing car owners to pay unpaid fees in installments, the Administrative Enforcement Agency could also confiscate their vehicles and put them on auction later if they continue to default on the fees.
The Freeway Bureau’s business division director Liu Feng-liang (劉逢良) said that the agency and the bureau have stepped up efforts in collecting unpaid toll fees by sending a list of cars with unpaid toll fees to the administrators of public parking garages.
If any of the cars on the list enters a parking garage, the administrator could quickly contact agency officials, who would then arrive to collect the unpaid fees, Liu said.
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