"Fuel Tax" to become a fuel tax?

[sulavaca]

The rich can be defined as people in a certain top percentile income bracket. It's really not very complicated. It can also be defined as people able to afford a few million NTD car.

Can you tell me which percentile of income earners are rich and what their total income, or residual income should be for them to be considered rich?
Can you tell me how many millions of dollars after taxes a car must be and in respect to usage for the owner of it to be considered "rich"? And please use a specific currency denomination.
I imagine that if identifying rich people is a science, then these questions shouldn't be difficult for the average person to answer. Most things of basic science are taught in high school after all.

You know I believe a lot of people think they know what it means to be "rich" or who "rich" people are and think they can identify them easily and separate them from others based on their purchases. I know however that most people are wrong about what it means to be rich. Am I rich? Certainly. I would suggest that you likely are too. We both have the time to spend hours on a computer each day chatting about subjects like this. That in my book, makes me rich. Doe it make me want to give up half of my earnings to the government? No. It doesn't. Does it make me want to give away half my earnings to the government so that they can then redistribute them to even richer people? No. It doesn't. Do I mind the government building a road for me and charging me a toll for the use of that road? No. I on't mind at all. I also don't mind paying a fuel company for fuel, or a car company for a car.
But I take issue with those that suggest that I have somehow purchased what THEY consider to be a luxury item. I know people who consider a bicycle to be a luxury item, or even a pair of shoes. There are no lines between the rich and the richer.

[*monkey*]

Agreed that the current system is farcical. A guy who pays NT40,000 for a 10-year-old SUV and drives it once a week for camping or beach trips has to pay another NT$40,000 every single year in license plate and fuel taxes based on engine size. That's like re-purchasing the same car every year!

Meanwhile, small car users commuting daily and clocking up 10 times the mileage pay only a fraction of the tax.

As Sulavaca says obliquely, the current system is a total disincentive for supercar and classic car owners who have vehicles in addition to their daily driver.

How about the commercial vehicles (taxis, cement trucks etc) that pollute, congest and damage the infrastructure by being on the road 16 or 24 hours a day, every day of the year. They only pay half the amount of tax, and for no apparent reason at all.

[headhonchoII]

The current system worked better when bigger cars were more wasteful and created more pollution. Now that bigger cars are getting more fuel efficient that argument is going out the window somewhat.

[Belgian Pie]

In Belgium it's a quite complicated calculation to get the gasoline price in Euro:


Gasoline 95 oct 10ppm

Price ex-refinery 0.6939 38.46%

Distribution margin 0.1691

Price (excl. taxes) 0.8630 47.84%

Contribution APETRA 0.0113 0.62% (association for National gasoline stock control in Belgium or something)

Contribution BOFAS 0.0032 0.18% (stands for Soil sanitation contribution)

Excise + energy contribution 0.6136 34.01%

Price (excl. VAT) 1.4910 82.65%

VAT (21 %) 0.3131 17.36%

Maximum price 1.804 100.00% roughly 69.9114 TWD
(VAT incl.)

Excise + VAT 0.9267 51.37%

Anyways, taxes contribute to over 50% of the total price.

So, every time you put 1,000NT$ of gas in your car the state coffers get 513.7 NT$.

Additionally, when you buy a car, new or second hand you pay a commissioning fee (depending on how 'green' your car is) and every year you have to pay a 'traffic' tax calculated according to your car's HP ...

Be happy you live in Taiwan ...

[Belgian Pie]

capacity (liter) - HP - tax
0 to 0,7 4 & less € 73,79
0,8 to 0,9 -5 hp € 92,27
1 to 1,1 -6 hp € 133,32
1,2 to 1,3 -7 hp € 174,24
1,4 to 1,5 -8 hp € 215,42
1,6 to 1,7 -9 hp € 256,61
1,8 to 1,9 -10 hp € 297,40
2,0 to 2,1 -11 hp € 385,84
2,2 to 2,3 -12 hp € 474,41
2,4 to 2,5 -13 hp € 562,72
2,6 to 2,7 -14 hp € 651,16
2,8 to 3,0 -15 hp € 739,73
3,1 to 3,2 -16 hp € 968,88
3,3 to 3,4 -17 hp € 1.198,16
3,5 to 3,6 -18 hp € 1.427,58
3,7 to 3,9 -19 hp € 1.656,34
4,0 to 4,1 -20 hp € 1.885,62
over 20 HP you pay additionally € 102,82/HP
Comparable to Taiwan?

[sulavaca]

The current system worked better when bigger cars were more wasteful and created more pollution. Now that bigger cars are getting more fuel efficient that argument is going out the window somewhat.

No it didn't. No one can say definitively that larger vehicles pollute more. Nothing has change since times of old.
Bigger cars are not necessarily more fuel efficient than smaller cars, and you can't say smaller cars are necessarily more efficient than larger cars either. It almost completely depends upon how the car is driven and how it was designed to perform.
The current system has never worked better at all the way I read and see things.
Governments world wide have fiddled and faffed with taxation methods on cars, but as I said earlier, when you involve the government in meddling with a system, then it is going to become less efficient and more costly. Certainly governments don't care though as its only in their own interest to keep themselves employed, regardless of their negative meddling.

[sulavaca]

capacity (liter) - HP - tax
...
over 20 HP you pay additionally € 102,82/HP
Comparable to Taiwan?

http://actaiwan.com/typical_motoring_costs.php

[*monkey*]

The current system worked better when bigger cars were more wasteful and created more pollution. Now that bigger cars are getting more fuel efficient that argument is going out the window somewhat.

The system never worked at all because occasional drivers (who should be rewarded for not driving daily) are unfairly penalized.

If the current fuel tax system in Taiwan were applied to, say smokers, shops would sell cigarattes at bargain basement prices while the government would send a tax bill once a year based on lung capacity. Do you think that would be fair?

[headhonchoII]

Until recently vehicles bigger engines were less fuel efficient, even now most are less fuel efficient than smaller engine cars due to their weight.
As they have a bigger engine dragging around more mass, they burn more fuel, creating more pollution per unit of vehicle all things being equal. All things being equal, the more fuel you burn, the more pollution you create. They also take more parking space, road space and more resources to build.

Yes there are exceptions due to drag, engine design, manual vs automatic. But in general a bigger car is less fuel efficient than a compact car.

It depends on what the government wants to push people towards. If the US govt was serious about fuel efficiency and reducing dependence on foreign oil it would have encouraged smaller cars years ago. But most Americans like big cars so it wasn't politically expedient. Now fuel efficiency has improved but in general a 2L or 3L engine is still not as efficient as smaller engines carrying less metal around.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/buying-se ... t-car2.htm
Vehicle weight is the biggest single enemy of fuel economy. A heavy vehicle simply needs more power than a smaller one to produce comparable acceleration and load-hauling capacity. And that's usually achieved by a larger-displacement engine.

[headhonchoII]

The current system worked better when bigger cars were more wasteful and created more pollution. Now that bigger cars are getting more fuel efficient that argument is going out the window somewhat.

The system never worked at all because occasional drivers (who should be rewarded for not driving daily) are unfairly penalized.

If the current fuel tax system in Taiwan were applied to, say smokers, shops would sell cigarattes at bargain basement prices while the government would send a tax bill once a year based on lung capacity. Do you think that would be fair?

Why don't you read what I wrote earlier in the thread, where did I say that a 'pay by fuel use' system is not good? Since you are too lazy to read from the start I will post it here again.

User pays is a good idea. But there is nothing wrong with richer people contributing a bit more too.

Of all the things to complain about with the Taiwanese tax system this ranks near the bottom. Do you know that about 70-80% of the revenue generated in Taiwan is by salaried workers. They have been no meaningful tax breaks given for years to the average family. Meanwhile with trading stocks there is no capital gains tax, inheritance tax was reduced to a tiny figure, business tax was reduced recently too. The government only just started looking at taxing overseas income. Health insurance premiums are still calculated not on total income but on individual reported income, mostly salaried income. Property tax is not assessed by the real value. Government workers get a special interest scheme that the public cannot avail of. Many big corporations don't even contribute tax on a net basis due to tax write offs or routing income through tax shelters!

So I think that people who can afford to pay millions NTD for a car in Taiwan can afford to pay a bit more tax.