Most people support adjusting fuel tax payments to reflect the actual size of a vehicle’s engine displacement, instead of using wide ranges as is currently done, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said yesterday.
More than 70 percent of respondents to a poll were in favor of changing the method of calculating fuel taxes to reflect a vehicle’s actual engine displacement, Chiu said.
The current model assesses fees based on a 600cc-increment measurement of a vehicle’s engine.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
More than 70 percent of respondents said that taxes for road maintenance and improvement that are collected when a vehicle is purchased should be adjusted to reflect the actual amount of driving the owner does by looking at their annual mileage or fuel consumption, he said, citing the poll.
According to the survey, 42.5 percent of vehicle owners “strongly supported” changing the method of calculating fuel tax, while 70 percent of those who do not own a vehicle “supported” or “strongly supported” a change.
Those who reported having a monthly income of more than NT$65,000 were the group most in favor of calculating road maintenance fees according to the driver’s annual mileage or fuel consumption.
Motorcycle YouTuber Spark Man (火花羅) said that calculating annual vehicle taxes based on mileage is the international norm.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications should adjust the fees to be in line with international standards, he said.
Nearly 80 percent of respondents favored lowering the sales tax for cars and motorcycles, NPP Secretary-General Lee Chao-li (李兆立) said, adding that 70 percent supported lowering tariffs on imported vehicles to support the country’s bid to enter the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
To protect the local industry, Taiwan imposes a 17.5 percent tariff on imported vehicles, plus a 25 percent sales tax on vehicles with engine displacements of up to 2l and 30 percent for vehicles with engines larger than that, he said.
These taxes make vehicles unaffordable for many people and would serve as an obstacle to Taiwan’s CPTPP bid, he said.
The survey was conducted from May 18 to Tuesday last week. It garnered 1,758 valid samples and claimed a margin of error of 2.34 percentage points.
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