Simon Court
ACT Transport spokesperson
The Transport Minister has admitted that more than 100,000 New Zealanders could be hit with his car tax next year.
In answer to questions from the ACT Party, Michael Wood said between 74,600 and 107,400 vehicles would face the tax next year.
The vehicles being taxed include utility vehicles that farmers and tradies need for work, or vehicles that are needed by large families.
Tradies and farmers need these vehicles, they can’t move hay bales with a Nissan Leaf. We’re taxing tradies to subsidise Teslas.
The Labour Government promised New Zealanders no new taxes. It didn’t campaign on this policy and now it has blindsided a group of New Zealanders who won’t be able to avoid this tax.
We don’t know what sort of cars people will buy, but if the average fee was $3,000, then at the mid-point of 91,000 cars attracting the tax, the Government would be creaming $273 million off Kiwi motorists.
On the other hand, if the average EV purchased got a $6,000 rebate, it would take 45,500 EVs to use up that revenue. Last year there were only 1600 EVs sold.
Under any plausible scenario, this policy will be a tax grab, taking hundreds of millions more than it pays out.
It’s not up to Government to dictate to us who should and shouldn’t be allowed to drive what vehicles. This is nanny state behaviour.
A hundred thousand is a huge number of New Zealanders to slug with a new tax. ACT is calling on the Government to reverse this policy.
ACT’s petition against this tax has attracted more than 20,000 signatures.”
Portfolio: Transport (Hon Michael Wood)
Question: How many people are expected to be affected by the fee component of the Clean Car package announced on 13 June 2021 by year from 2021 – 2025?
Reply: The analysis is based on the number of vehicles rather than the number of people. As some people can make multiple vehicle purchase with a given year, we cannot determine the number of people to be affected by the fee component of the Clean Car Discount scheme. As the Clean Car Discount schedule from 2023 is yet to be approved, officials have provided the estimates for 2022 only here. We estimate between 74,600 and 107,400 vehicles would face a fee in 2022.
24280 (2021)
Please share so others can discover The BFD.
