The Australian Government should increase the trucking industry’s fuel tax credits by 1.04 cents per litre in the 2014-15 Budget. Trucking businesses can claim fuel tax credits through their business activity statements: an increase in fuel tax credits is effectively a tax cut.

The increase is one of the recommendations in the ATA’s 2014-15 pre-budget submission.

The submission recommends that governments should slash truck registration charges in the longer term, with an adjustment to the industry’s fuel tax credits to compensate for the lost revenue.

The submission argues the Government should provide the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) with an extra $4.3 million over four years to establish national databases of coronial recommendations about road safety and serious heavy vehicle accidents.

Setting up these databases would be the first step toward the ATSB taking on the role of investigating serious truck crashes and making safety recommendations.