Industry News | POWERING OFF

Base government policy arguably exposed in prominent relief

A few weeks ago, here at CBG HQ, we wondered aloud about motor taxation, the diesel engine and the government incentives of the future. Unfortunately there are so, so many areas where they (the irish govt) are simply reactive – and so, so fail us: everything long-fingered or buried within tribunals, a series of bottom line decisions versus lowest common denominators.

Meh: just deleted an entire paragraph on the HSE, Leo V, homelessness, Templemore and "white-collar crime" legislation. But there is a context here: if tax revenue is at stake “they” are all over it, ''they'' are suddenly totally PROactive. A cost-coded coda kicks in, anticipating years in advance. Essentially, when electric vehicles (EVs) inevitably attain market dominance (barring some ‘Mad Max’-type dysto-future), when nobody buys petrol or diesel anymore, it will mean relatively massive losses to our exchequer.

Now this advisory from our most trustworthy Department of Finance to the incumbent FG/FF shysters, as an example of the shape of things to come (excerpt): “In relation to replacing fuel excise duties, the possibility of shifting taxes to road usage should be considered – in the context of the uptake of EVs’’. In other words their answer to this under-the-counter conundrum is to “pay-per-mile”. As if it wasn’t a total rip-off in the first place…