Myth: Motorists pay more in taxes and fees than is spent on roads

Fact: Part of the problem here is the underlying premise: just as we don't expect all money collected from gamblers to be spent on casinos, or all money collected from liquor excise to be spent on pubs, so we shouldn't expect all money collected from motorists to be spent on roads. But in any case, the smallest credible estimate for the total cost of the road system in Australia is $47 billion a year, of which $31 billion a year is collected in taxes and charges on motorists, leaving a 'road deficit' of at least $16 billion a year.

It's often claimed by the RACV and other road lobbyists that the cost of roads is only a small percentage of what Australian motorists pay in fuel tax, registration and other fees. This is untrue: in fact, taxes and charges on motorists fail to cover the cost to the public of car use.

Headline-grabbing figures for fuel tax are easy to obtain simply because there are over 10 million motorists in Australia, so if each motorist spends just one dollar there's suddenly over $10 million changing hands. To take just one example, in June 2006 the Herald-Sun ran large headlines about the $2 billion a year 'stolen' from Australian motorists in GST on petrol. This sounds impressive until you realise it represents less than $200 a year per motorist - a fraction of what it costs to fill a pothole in the street, let alone resurface a road or repair a bridge, and a similarly small fraction of the $5000 a year one will typically spend to own and run a car.

The tables below outline just those costs of car use that can be quantified in dollar figures, and the total revenue collected from Australian motorists each year. See the Appendix for more detail on how these figures are obtained.

Sources: Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, Transport Statistics, various years; Public road-related expenditure and revenue in Australia (2008 update); Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Australian Transport, 2005. Connelly et al, The economic costs of road traffic crashes: Australia, states and territories. (Accident Analysis and Prevention, 2006.) Bus Industry Confederation, submission to the National Fuel Tax Enquiry, 2001. Australian Tax Office, Taxation Statistics, various years. Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, Half Yearly General Insurance Bulletin, June 2005. Laird et al, Back on Track, UNSW Press, 2001. Queensland Budget Papers, 2005-06. PTUA calculations (see Appendix).

We have been careful to include in the 'revenue' table all the taxes and charges motorists actually pay for the use of roads. To avoid any arguments over the ways in which motorists 'pay their way', we include many items that many would say are not really 'user charges' at all, such as GST on car purchase and maintenance as well as fuel, and premiums for all car insurance (not just the compulsory third-party component).

On the other hand, figures in the 'costs' table have been deliberately kept on the conservative side, and should be regarded as minimum estimates. There are many important exclusions. For example, construction and maintenance costs for private toll roads are not included, even though we count tolls as one of the charges motorists pay for roads. And we ignore the very large sums provided in government support for the car industry (although part of this is offset through import tariffs).

We also leave out the considerable social costs of mass car use, such as reduced neighbourliness within communities, reduced independence of children, and the increase in obesity resulting from lack of 'incidental exercise' such as cycling to the shops or walking to the bus stop. These costs are still subject to a lot of uncertainty. According to the road lobby, they are so nebulous that they shouldn't be counted at all. In any event, we haven't counted them here.

In addition to the above, it is common to include a notional cost of traffic congestion, usually estimated as around $12 billion a year in Australia. For the purpose of this exercise we haven't included any figure for congestion, because as we explain elsewhere, many international transport experts dispute that the 'cost of congestion' is a meaningful notion. And of course, traffic congestion is often used as an argument for building more roads, despite the fact that this doesn't actually work.

The difference between the cost of car use and the revenue collected from motorists is the 'road deficit'. The conservative figures above result in a road deficit of nearly $16 billion a year. This is the amount of money that has to come from the general public (whether motorists or not) to subsidise the use of cars and the consequences of car use. If it were to be recovered from fuel tax, this tax would have to nearly triple, from 38 cents per litre to almost $1. But as we have explained, this figure for the road deficit is only a minimum. If all of the costs are included and revenue more carefully analysed, the difference will almost certainly be much greater. Petrol would have to be priced at over $3 per litre if the full cost were charged to motorists.

But even if there were no shortfall, it still wouldn't necessarily be true that more expenditure on roads or cuts to fuel tax are justified. By buying petrol and registering cars people are not necessarily revealing a preference for road transport. There's a substantial captive market of people who are forced to buy petrol and pay fuel tax and car registration despite wanting an alternative. They may prefer that the revenue be spent on public transport. (So it should also be obvious that by pointing out the costs of car use we are not trying to 'blame' motorists for these costs. It is not the public's fault that the alternatives to driving are so poorly developed in Australia.)

In the end, it's not important whether fuel tax and other fees pay for roads or not. They're just another kind of tax and can be used for whatever we as a democracy want it to be used for. Indeed, we know that improvements to public transport have greater benefits for traffic congestion than building freeways, so public transport improvements can be just as good a use for petrol tax revenue as road works.

Appendix: Detailed Analysis of Road Costs and Revenue

All figures have been calculated for the 2004-05 financial year, this being the latest for which reliable figures are available. Since 2005 there has been no decline in road spending or in the other costs of roads, while increases in petrol prices have slightly moderated the growth in car travel (hence in revenue from motorists). Accordingly the road deficit for 2006 and 2007 will be the same or slightly higher than in 2005, and our figures will provide conservative estimates for the current deficit.

Road Construction and Maintenance

The road lobby devotes much attention in its PR material to the money spent on road construction (which is always inadequate, despite exceeding by a factor of 10 the money spent on new public transport infrastructure). Instead of drawing attention to all the costs that roads and cars impose on the community, road lobbyists simply point to a figure for road construction and maintenance, and claim that this is only some small percentage (say 15 or 25 per cent) of what motorists actually pay in fuel tax. The message that emerges is that motorists are being ripped off.

This canard dates back to the Kennett Government's Better Roads Levy, which was a 3-cent-a-litre surcharge on petrol targeted toward Victorian road construction. When it was introduced in 1993, Federal fuel excise was around 30 cents a litre, so the Kennett surcharge represented around 10 per cent of the total tax on petrol. This made it possible for the road lobby to claim that "only 10 per cent of your petrol tax is dedicated to Victorian roads" - despite the fact that Federal funding of Victorian roads (via State and local assistance grants) far exceeded what the Kennett tax was raising.

The way the road lobby misrepresents the facts today is to report only Federal spending on roads, which comes to about 25 per cent of the money raised from fuel tax. But the Federal Government only funds a small number of roads: those classed as part of the AusLink National Network (or before 2004, as National Highways or Roads of National Importance). Most expenditure on roads is the responsibility of the states, and local government also accounts for a large chunk. Think of all the little streets in your local area: they're entirely Council funded (from rates and developer contributions, not motorist charges), with the odd State or Federal grant chipping in. But Federal operating grants to the states, or to local government, are often not classed as road expenditure despite the fact that a lot of the money gets spent on roads.

It's virtually impossible to trace a direct money trail from petrol tax to road funding, but that's not the way government finances work. It's better to think of all the money collected by all three tiers of government going into a big pot called 'public revenue', and all the money spent by governments coming out of the same pot. In the case of roads, petrol tax is collected by the Federal government, but roads are funded by all three tiers of government. In-between are various transfers of money between governments to ensure that everything balances.

The table below shows figures for 'identified' expenditure on Australia's roads by the three tiers of government in 2004-05. This will account for most spending on roads, but not all, as some road spending appears under other budget items (such as 'Major Projects' in Victoria). It also excludes spending on private toll roads, which the BITRE estimates at $1.97 billion in 2004-05.

Source: Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, Australian Transport Statistics 2008.

BTRE documents indicate that goverment expenditure on roads increased by around 5 per cent each year through the 1990s, and now hovers around $9 to $10 billion a year. (Between 2001 and 2002 Federal road expenditure actually grew by a massive 22 per cent, from $1.748 billion to $2.136 billion.) The biggest growth seen this decade has been in roads built as public-private partnerships, which don't show up on government balance sheets, but nonetheless incur 'hidden costs' in tax concessions and off-budget deals (such as the one with Transurban bringing forward Citylink payments to cover the widening of the Monash Freeway, the cost of which will be borne chiefly by future taxpayers).

Land Use Cost

When you buy or rent a house, a large part of what you pay is to cover the cost of the land. When you purchase goods or services, you pay a certain amount to cover the proprietor's business overheads, including the rent on the premises. On the other hand, land for the roads that cars drive on is provided for free, courtesy of the common weal. The cost of acquiring land to build roads is paid by all of us as taxpayers.

This is part of what makes 'just-in-time' (JIT) inventory management so attractive for businesses. To store goods in a warehouse you have to pay rent on the warehouse, but storing goods in trucks that never leave the open road incurs no cost beyond a relatively small amount for registration and fuel. This is a classic market distortion that results in excessive numbers of large trucks in our streets.

Just as the cost of roads includes the cost of building and maintaining the roads, it also has to factor in the cost of the land they use. In 1996, the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) estimated the value of land under public roads to be between $100 and $120 billion. This figure doesn't include roads and car parks on private land - urbanist David Engwicht has estimated that when you take into account all the space given over to driveways, carports, and commercial car parks (most of which sit idle for half the day), the typical family car has around three times as much space allocated to it as the typical family home. However, car space on private land is costed, so we don't count it in the cost of car use.

Allowing for inflation between 1996 and today, and the roads built during that time, makes NIEIR's upper estimate of $120 billion a very conservative estimate for the value of land under roads now - even after excluding footpaths, bike lanes, bus lanes and tramways. If the value were deemed to increase at the same rate as Australian house prices, it would now be between $220 and $270 billion - and that still excludes the value of roads built since 1996. Nonetheless, to avoid accusations that we're unnecessarily padding the figures, we'll stick with the lower estimate of $120 billion.

The annual rent on land typically sits at around 5 per cent of the site value. 5 per cent is also close to the 'risk free rate of return' that sets the minimum yield for low-risk investments such as government bonds. Thus, a conservative cost for public land use by cars is 5% of $120 billion, or $6 billion a year. This represents the 'opportunity cost' to the Australian public of turning over land to the more-or-less exclusive use of cars and trucks rather than other uses.

It should however be noted that the notional 'Capital Asset Charge' the Victorian Treasury applies to all public infrastructure (with the anomalous exception of roads) is based on an 8 per cent rate of return. Using this rate would put the land use cost of Australian roads at $10 billion a year. But in keeping with the conservatism of our figures, we use the lower $6 billion figure in our calculations.

Road Trauma

The Australian road toll is now around 1,600 deaths a year. In addition, over 26,000 people each year are hospitalised as a result of road crashes. As a proportion of population our road toll compares favourably with other Western nations; on the other hand, we score poorly compared to other Western nations on the rate of pedestrian and cyclist injuries due to road crashes. It is likely that the number of people hospitalised each year by cars is even greater than the official figures suggest, as not all road incidents are reported as such.

The Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics in 2000 estimated the direct cost of road trauma in 1996 as around $15 billion. In 2006, an update to this analysis put the cost of road trauma in 2003 at $17.3 billion, broken down as follows:

Source: Connelly et al. The economic costs of road traffic crashes: Australia, states and territories. Accident Analysis and Prevention, vol.38 (2006).

This 'direct cost' figure is the one used in our accounting: it is a readily measurable minimum that accounts for the cost of treating crash victims, the cost of repairing property damage, and the victims' lost income. (To be extra conservative, we have not indexed the cost for inflation up to 2004-05.)

What are not included are the very substantial indirect health costs of car use. Car dependence is accepted to be a big factor in Australia's 'obesity epidemic' and the increasing incidence of heart disease, diabetes and other obesity-related diseases. Pollution from cars is a major factor in respiratory illness in urban areas. And while our Federal Government is preoccupied with the challenge an aging population poses to the national budget (in large part because of the 'obesity epidemic'), some health economists now think a greater challenge is posed by lifestyle-related illnesses such as depression and certain types of cancer that affect young and middle-aged Australians. The incidence of these diseases is closely linked to whether the urban environment is conducive to moderate levels of physical activity and to the existence of healthy social networks.

The indirect cost to society of all these illnesses is estimated at around $60 billion a year, the largest component of this figure being pollution-related respiratory illness at around $18 billion a year. For the sake of this exercise we have not counted most of these indirect costs, except where others have identified them as specific consequences of car and truck use as in the 'noise' and 'pollution' figures below.

Noise and Pollution

These figures are taken from a 2001 submission by the Bus Industry Confederation to the National Fuel Tax Enquiry. They represent 'externalities' associated with car and truck use: costs that are paid neither by motorists nor by transport authorities acting on behalf of motorists.

The value of $700 million for noise costs is the BIC's 'lower' estimate; the 'upper' estimate is close to $2 billion. Uncertainty arises because the most recent comprehensive studies of noise damage appeared in the early 1990s, and changes in costs since then have to be estimated. The BIC also notes that their figures assume that noise damage does not occur in non-urban areas, an assumption that many rural Australians might dispute.

The figure for pollution takes into account some of the indirect health costs due to respiratory illness mentioned above. However, the approach taken is more conservative, setting aside possible effects about which there is still much uncertainty. So again, this is a minimum credible estimate rather than a most probable estimate. The figure has not been time-adjusted, as on past experience any marginal improvements in pollution performance since 2001 wlll have been more than cancelled out by the increase in car and truck travel and by cost inflation.

Climate Change

Our figure for climate change is also based on the BIC submission to the National Fuel Tax enquiry, but has been updated to reflect the increase in motor vehicle emissions from 2000 to 2005. The figure has also been verified against later estimates both here and overseas, notably the Stern Review released in the UK in late 2006, and the draft findings of the Garnaut Review here.

Following the BIC methodology, climate change costs are estimated based on the short-term marginal effect of greenhouse gas emissions. The marginal cost is estimated at $40 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, which is close to the minimum estimated cost for the European Union to meet its target under the Kyoto protocol, and is also the value set as the buy-out price for the Australian renewable energy obligation. As the BIC states, it is stressed this value is only relevant for the short-term: the marginal damage costs and the marginal abatement costs will increase dramatically in future years.

We note that the UK Department for Transport gives a lower bound cost (assuming a 'business as usual' scenario) of £42.44 (about AU$90) per tonne of CO₂ in 2006, rising to £98.32 (about AU$200) per tonne in 2060. The Stern Review on the economics of climate change gives a lower estimate of US$30 per tonne of CO₂ (about AU$32), assuming that action is taken now to stabilise greenhouse emissions. If action is delayed, the cost is US$85 (about AU$90) per tonne, similar to the UK DfT estimate. In all cases the costs rise further over time.

In December 2007, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown instituted a national 'carbon price' to be used in the economic assessment of government decisions. The price starts at £25.50 per tonne (about AU$53) in 2007 and will rise annually, reaching £59.60 per tonne (about AU$124) in 2050. Our own Garnaut taskforce has not yet nominated a figure for a carbon price, but media reports suggest a starting price around $45. We may therefore regard a $40 per tonne figure as quite conservative.

According to the BTRE report Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Australian Transport, the aggregate emissions from road vehicles (excluding buses) in 2004 were 71,786 thousand tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. Costing these emissions at the conservative $40 per tonne gives the $2.9 billion figure used here. Costed at the UK 'business as usual' figure of $90 per tonne, the figure would be about $6.4 billion, rising in future years.

Tax Concessions For Car Use

The Australian tax system provides generous deductions for the use of cars, and to a lesser extent for the purchase or leasing of cars. In most cases equivalent deductions are not available for use of public transport, even for business activities. The tax treatment of car expenses in Australia is so generous that it often induces people to use cars more often than they otherwise would. The most notorious of these perverse incentives concerns Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT), as financial journalists gleefully point out:

Though the former Howard Government continually maintained it didn't give tax deductions for private expenditure, the Tax Office website states quite clearly that both business and private travel counts toward the kilometres used to determine the statutory tax rate. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that anecdotes abound of company-car owners going on gratuitous driving expeditions so as to 'clock up' the necessary 40,000 kilometres to claim the maximum FBT tax break. A recent Senate enquiry found that half the cars on Australian city streets in peak hour are company cars benefiting from this loophole.

By contrast, it makes no sense for employers to salary-package public transport tickets on behalf of employees, because these incur the maximum FBT rate of 95 per cent.

However, FBT concessions for car use are only part of the story. The following table shows the extent of tax deductions claimed for car use in recent years. It also indicates that the rate of growth of car-related deductions (nearly 4.5 per cent per year on average) has been greater than growth in incomes.

Source: Australian Taxation Office, Taxation Statistics, various years. All amounts in $million.
'Year' is the financial year ending in June of the year stated.
Note that individuals claim two kinds of deductions: 'work related deductions' against wage or salary income, and 'business expenses' against business income.
Excludes motor vehicle deductions claimed as 'management expenses' by superannuation funds, as figures are not available.
Revenue forgone is estimated as 36 per cent of total deductions claimed.
'Luxury Car Tax' prior to introduction of the GST in 2000-01 is reckoned as the amount of sales tax collected on new vehicles, less what would have been collected by a 10 per cent GST.
FBT collections for motor vehicles from 2000 are estimates based on total FBT collections, as the ATO ceased to provide FBT statistics by type of benefit. As of 2003-04 the ATO now provides figures for taxable value (but not actual tax collected) by benefit type, and this has been used to derive more precise estimates from 2004 and recalibrate estimates for 2000 to 2003.
'Net Subsidy' is revenue forgone due to deductions, less the amount collected in Luxury Car Tax and FBT.

A table similar to this one appeared in the book Back on Track: Rethinking Transport Policy in Australia and New Zealand by Philip Laird et al. Our figures differ in two ways:

Public transport advocates are not the only ones to draw attention to the extent of these tax breaks. Even the right-wing Melbourne Institute, not known for being radical greenies, has questioned whether general taxpayers should be subsidising motorists to such an extent.

The tax subsidy to car use depends on movements in both tax deductions and FBT collections. The trend that can be discerned from the table is for deductions to increase strongly while FBT collections for cars and parking decline, so that the net subsidy steadily increases. For the 2004-05 financial year the subsidy was $5.8 billion.

State Fuel Subsidies

It appears to be a little known fact that until 2007 all six states, and the Northern Territory, subsidised the consumption of petrol and diesel. Currently all states other than Victoria still do. The largest by far is the Queensland subsidy of a little over eight cents a litre (8.354 cents to be precise), but subsidies also apply in other states. In Victoria, petrol and diesel subsidies used to cost the government about $40 million a year - enough to build one modest rail extension, or buy 100 new buses, every year.

These subsidies came about through historical accident. Prior to 1997, all states other than Queensland collected tax of around 8 cents per litre on fuel, in addition to the Federal fuel excise. In 1997 this was ruled by the High Court to be unconstitutional. To avoid the fiscal crisis that would have otherwise resulted (as the states relied on this revenue to help pay for roads), the Federal Government agreed to collect an extra 8 cents itself and pass it on to the states. As Queensland did not actually collect its own fuel tax, it introduced the Fuel Subsidy Scheme, whereby the extra 8 cents from the Federal Government was passed back to consumers. Other states applied smaller subsidies to cover the small difference between the Federal tax and their own taxes (which varied slightly from state to state).

As part of the tax changes in 2000 this additional 8 cent tax was abolished completely, as the states no longer had need of the revenue now they were benefiting from a GST on all goods and services. Logically then, the state subsidies for fuel consumption would also have ceased. However, the subsidies continued: the Queensland Government in particular retained its 8 cent subsidy on the recommendation of a 'Fuel Taskforce' dominated by representatives of the road lobby.

Except in Queensland, the fuel subsidies amount to a fraction of a cent per litre and a few dollars a year per person, and their abolition would be unnoticeable to the motorist at the bowser. Yet even these tiny subsidies add up to many millions of dollars a year that could be spent far more sustainably, as noted above.

Source: Commonwealth Grants Commission. Subsidies - Petroleum Products, Draft Assessment Paper CGC 2003/52, August 2003. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001 Census (population figures).

(This same source draws attention to the disturbing fact that Victoria has the highest per capita fuel consumption of all states and territories, even taking into account the broad expanses of Queensland, WA and the Top End! This highlights the fact that Australia's unsustainable level of fuel consumption is due not to long-distance travel in the bush, but to routine travel in urban areas for which public transport substitutes more easily.)

According to the Queensland Budget Papers, payments under the Fuel Subsidy Scheme totalled $511 million in 2004-05 and have increased every year since (the latest budget figure for fuel subsidies in 2008-09 is $572 million). Even assuming no increase in subsidy expenses in other states, the nationwide total for 2005 works out as $609 million. We have rounded this down to $600 million as a conservative estimate of subsidy expenditure.

The Victorian government abolished its fuel subsidy in 2007. But as a 'quid pro quo' to the car lobby it also reduced stamp duty on mid-priced cars, at a revenue cost greater than the removed subsidy. So while at least one state no longer subsidises petrol consumption, the net effect on the road deficit in this case has actually been detrimental.

Petrol and Diesel Excise

According to the Australian Taxation Office, fuel excise raised $9,855 million in 2004-05. The total excise collected on all petroleum products was $13.6 billion, but around $3.7 billion of this was rebated. Rebates are available for use of diesel and some other fuels in trains, ships, large trucks and buses, farm machinery, mining operations, electricity generation and health care, as well as for general fuel sales in rural areas. Aviation fuel is excluded from the figure as it is not subject to excise.

Since 2001 the rate of fuel excise has been frozen so that it doesn't rise with inflation (unlike the price of everything else, including public transport). This means that growth in revenue from fuel excise is almost entirely due to growth in car and truck use, which roughly coincides with growth in GDP. Without adjustment for inflation, excise is an unsustainable revenue source: given an economic downturn or further rises in fuel prices, traffic levels and hence revenue from fuel excise can be expected to decline, while many of the costs of car use (such as the cost of maintaining roads) will continue to rise with inflation.

From the table above we can already see this starting to happen between 2004 and 2005. In 2005 there was a sharp rise in petrol prices, which slowed the increase in travel, resulting in growth in excise revenue of just 0.1%.

GST on Fuel and Vehicles

GST is charged on the pump price of fuel, and on the purchase and maintenance costs of vehicles, just as it is on public transport fares and all consumer goods other than basic food. Because it's levied equally on all forms of transport it is questionable whether the GST should be counted as a tax on road use, but we include it anyway for the sake of argument. It's important to realise that the government doesn't actually get all of the GST money collected, since any vehicle use for business purposes has the GST refunded as an 'input tax credit'. The GST revenue figure is thus equal to total GST collections less input tax credits refunded.

The GST is unlike many other charges in that it fluctuates with retail prices, so estimates will vary from year to year. BITRE has used Bureau of Statistics figures to estimate GST on the purchase, maintenance and fuelling of motor vehicles as $3,390 million in 2002-03 and $3,608 million in 2003-04. No estimate is available for 2004-05, but if we extrapolate the trend (and add a little for the fuel price increases in 2005) we get a figure of about $4,000 million.

It's worth noting that even at today's high prices, the overall tax on petrol is still less than it would have been under pre-GST arrangements. The excise now set at 38 cents per litre would by now have risen to 56 cents per litre had the Howard Government not cut excise and abolished the automatic indexing with inflation in 2001. So until average pump prices rise to $1.98 a litre (when the GST collected is 18 cents), the motorist is still getting a better deal than previously, leaving a larger road deficit for non-motorists to carry.

Vehicle Registration Fees

Car and truck registration fees levied by State governments raised $3,497 million in 2004-05, according to the BITRE - up from $2,637 million in 2000-01. While much is made of the money State Governments collect from registration fees, the total is less than what the Federal Government gives back through vehicle-related tax concessions.

Insurance Premiums

The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) compiles annual statistics on the Australian insurance industry, including the total annual premiums paid for various classes of insurance. From these statistics it is possible to determine the total insurance premiums received from motorists, both for compulsory third party (CTP) insurance (paid to both public-sector organisations like the TAC and to private-sector companies) and for other kinds of car insurance (almost all to private-sector insurance companies).

Changes to the reporting framework for insurance companies (stemming from the HIH collapse) means there is a gap in the annual statistics between 2002 and 2005. However, we can still compare the figures for the 2001-02 and 2004-05 financial years to see the general trend:

Source: Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority. Selected Statistics on the General Insurance Industry, June 2002. Half Yearly General Insurance Bulletin, June 2005.

The $10.4 billion total for 2004-05 has been used in our accounting. Note again that this figure is for all car insurance, not just that which covers damage due to crashes.

Tolls

Other Revenue

Aside from registration fees, State governments also collect revenue from motorists in the form of stamp duty on registration transfers, driver licence fees, and sundry road transport and maintenance taxes. These various fees totalled $2,232 million in 2004-05.

To this figure must be added the small amount collected by the Federal Government under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme. This amount was $43 million in 2004-05.

Until 2000, State Governments collected around $1.5 billion a year in franchise fees from fuel retailers. This fee was abolished with the introduction of the GST, so any reference to it in road lobby literature may safely be ignored.

© 2007 Public Transport Users Association Inc. (PTUA), Victoria, Australia. ABN 83 801 487 611.
General copying and distribution on a non-commercial basis is permitted subject to proper acknowlegement.
Authorised by Tony Morton, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, for the PTUA

Common Urban Myths About Transport