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Heavy vehicle road user charge annual adjustment submission

21 March 2013

The National Transport Commission has proposed that the charges paid by trucking operators should increase 2.5 per cent from 1 July 2013.

In its submission, the ATA instead recommends that the road user charge and registration charges should increase by 2.25 per cent – the forecast inflation rate.

There are considerable doubts in the functionality of the current annual adjustment process that mean its application to the RUC and registration should not happen in 2013-14.

It must be remembered that 2012-13 charges increased the RUC by 10 per cent and increased registration charges by 6-32 per cent. The heavy vehicle industry operates on very small profit margins and adding unfair charges will burden industry further.

Under the ATA’s recommendation, the road user charge would increase by 0.57 cents per litre from 25.5 cents per litre to 26.07 cents per litre. The fuel tax credits that could be claimed by trucking operators would fall from 12.643 cents per litre to 12.073 cents per litre.

The NTC proposal would see the road user charge increase to 26.14 cents per litre. The fuel tax credit rate for trucking operators would fall to 12.003 cents per litre.

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