Petrol boat owners

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skygone1, Sep 5, 2:02pm
as sent to PM , Grant Robertson and Phill Tyford

Dear Sir or Madam

I wish to commend your governments wish to improve the roading in NZ

Can I ask why the operators of petrol powered recreational boats cannot claim back the road tax and ACC levies from the price of petrol used in their boats like farmers and commercial boat owners can from fuel used off road.This could be done easily by registering your boat to a data base that records its name length and engine type and size and hour meter reading . This would make petrol purchases fair when you consider that
diesel boats pay no road or fuel tax,
take a look in the marinas around the country and you will see thousands of large recreational vessels that are diesel powered, two diesel engines are common, no road tax or ACC levies being paid here.Nor do EV cars or the huge cruise ships that dump huge numbers of passengers on to our roads then fill up with large amounts of road tax free diesel or fuel oil. Then there are the cyclists who demand a share of the roads and dont pay any registration fee or any any proof that they know the road rules eg. have a drivers licence.

This differential in fuel pricing is an extremely unjust discrimination against smaller boat owners and I urge you to give this your immediate attention.

The road tax on petrol at the moment is close to 50% = $1.00 per litre
This was originally written in November 2017 it is now more than 50%
Please feel free to cut and share this.

bwg11, Sep 5, 2:23pm
My guess as the reply you will get will go something like this: "Thank you for your reasoned and logical query, but as Sir Michael Cullen, chairman of our Tax Working Group, has often stated, we must sock it to the "rich pricks". As that most large petrol powered pleasure boats are owned by this demographic, the status quo must remain".

s_nz, Sep 5, 3:46pm
Nah. Petrol powered trailarable runabouts are the boats of the working class.

40+ foot, 2 story luxary launches (oftern with 800+ horsepower) are the boats of the rich. They run on diesel.

snork28, Sep 5, 7:32pm
you forgot, lawnmowers,weed eaters, leafblowers, chainsaws, posthole borers, 4 and 2 stroke stationary engines, waterpumps, etc etc.

s_nz, Sep 5, 8:34pm
Garden maintenance petrol consumption is very small compared to marine use.

This report puts it at an average of 28L per property (including commercial gardening). Remember that commercial gardening contractors, farmers etc are able to claim back the road user tax.

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-data-modelling/technical-papers/pdf-library/Liquid-fuel-use.pdf

The same report has the average recreational marine craft using 375L/annum. Note that craft such racing yachts with small outboards to comply with saftey regulations would drag this average down.

skygone1, Sep 5, 9:41pm
Taking the tax off the petrol brings the price back to close to diesel.
I would be happy enough to pay the fuel tax if the users of diesel boats also payed an equal amount of tax, also Electric vehicles cyclists and other free loaders payed the same. I would save about $100 on a day out fishing if the tax was refunded

gpg58, Sep 5, 10:15pm
Good idea, my 1997 mercruiser 350ci has a 225lt tank, so that average use figure would only fill it 1.5 times, i sure could use that sort of price drop.

skygone1, Sep 5, 10:26pm
spread this word and see if we can make this social net work thing prick a conscience or two.

framtech, Sep 5, 11:14pm
The only way you could do it is by having road users charges to all vehicles using the road, this would be a good thing because it would catch the EV's as well and make them pay for the road too.

martin11, Sep 6, 7:39am
Years ago you used to be able to get the tax back on boat petrol but everyone was filling up cans and putting it in their cars ,that is one of the reasons it was stopped . in the UK I believe boat petrol is a different colour than car petrol and it is a heavy fine if it is found in a car petrol tank .

gymee1, Sep 6, 8:09am
This used to be the case in the early sixties with farm Petrol, it was coloured because the Farmer was getting subsidised petrol and was using it in their private vehicles, May still be the sametoday.

headcat, Sep 6, 9:13am
200 liters for a day's fishing? If you are this extravagant the fuel tax should not be a problem. You are pretty obviously not running a 3 hp Seagull motor.

skygone1, Sep 6, 9:51am
headcat wrote:

200 liters for a day's fishing? If you are this extravagant the fuel tax should not be a problem. You are pretty obviously not running a 3 hp Seagull motor.[/quote
] Sorry $76.50 if no wind and the tide running right petrol in Invercargill is $2.27 for 91 on a flat day I will use 80 to 90 litres for eight to ten hours with 4 or 5 people on board Not a lot more than in a 3.2 V6 car running steady for that time

skygone1, Sep 6, 9:53am
unlike the sounds Foveoux Straight has strong tides and horse power is essential

s_nz, Sep 6, 12:18pm
EV's RUC exemption is only temporary, to encourage uptake (currently expires in 2021). Current government strategy is to remove incentives when they make up 2% of the vehicle fleet.

That said, at some point out road tax system needs to be reworked.

It massively distorts the market. (lucky this distortion made small diesel cars uneconomic, so our cities aren't clogged with pollution form diesel hatchbacks and taxi's, as is the case in Europe).

When RUC's go back on EV's, they will pay triple the road tax of a Prius. Given that NZ has agreed to reduce our climate change emissions, and given that we make our own electricity, but mostly import oil, this is the opposite of what we should be encouraging.

Recreational boats get slammed by the current road tax in petrol, where diesel recreational boats get off free.

Economical petrol cars, get off very lightly in terms of road tax compared to light diesel cars (and Electric vehicles once the exemption ends).

When RUC's go back on EV's, they will pay triple the road tax of a Prius. Given that NZ has agreed to reduce our climate change emissions, and given that we make our own electricity, but mostly import oil, this is the opposite of what we should be encouraging.

With larger light vehicles (i.e. Y62 nissan patrol, 200 series toyota land-cruiser, and larger utes / vans), the opposite is true. Petrol vehicle owners get slammed, where diesel vehicle owners get of lightly.

over 3.5 tonne the game changes again. all vehicles pay RUC's, but if petrol can claim rebates. This mean that USA sourced petrol RV's (campervans) aren't actually too expensive to run.

The last point is interesting, the Y62 nissan patrol (~300kW V8 petrol, 14L/100km) has a GVM of 3500kg. If this was 1 kg more, it would be a lot cheaper to run as it would be required to pay ruc's (currently 6.8c/km), but would also be able to claim back petrol tax. (undesirable side impact would reduced speed limit to 90km/h, and requirement for RUC).

The dodge ram 1500 was recently launched in NZ, with a petrol v8 hemi engine. This will likely be over 3500kg GVM so will be eligible for the rebate. This is the first vehicle that I know of which is pitched as a daily driver that will be eligible for a petrol rebate. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Back on topic, regarding petrol recreational boating, I note that the government originally advertised that Auckland fuel tax rebates would be available for off road vehicles. They switched this at the last minute to only be for off road commercial users.

The big issue that the government would have if they allowed rebates for recreational power boating petrol, is tax evasion / fraud. Many boats have no instrumentation (odo / hours meters). Would be easy for somebody to claim that they had run 1000L of fuel through their boat this year, when it actually went through their cars.

Even on boats with hours meters, generally they are run off key position, not engine running status. Hook up battery charger, and leave the key on for a few days, so hours match the fuel use on the paperwork.

Eventually I think that road tax will be collected via a GPS based, real time congestion charge method. Drive south on the Auckland southern motorway at 5pm, and you will get charge 30c/km, but make the same trip at 2am, and you will get charged 2c/km. Climate change related taxes will be added directly to fuels with no rebates available. This of course is decades away.

elect70, Sep 6, 2:00pm
Then buy a deisel boat .if cant afford the petrol

s_nz, Sep 6, 3:53pm
The majority of powerboats in NZ run outboard engines.

Apart from a couple of obscure exceptions, outboard engines are unavailable in diesel.

Outboards are well suited to the common NZ runabout. compared to an diesel inboard, they are very cheap to buy, cheaper to maintain, much lighter weight, easier to replace at end of life, and don't require a massive engine box using up space. Launches are better suited to diesel inboard engines.

They typical NZ recreational power boat user does not use their boat enough to pay back the the extra cost (and other compromises) of a diesel inboard with fuel savings.

Frankly setting up our tax system to promote running boats on a fuel which exhaust emissions are classified by the WHO as a carcinogen is a bit perverse.

skygone1, Sep 6, 4:29pm
And this will fix the problem. As I asked in general, would you be happy driving around in your petrol car paying fuel tax if they removed road user charges on diesel cars?

asa50, Sep 7, 9:04am
Where I lived in Europe they had "red diesel". This was diesel with a red dye added, it was sold without taxes with the intention it was used in farm machinery, boats, power generators etc. The police would have random road side checks on vehicles for everything such as WOF and road tax. They would also dip into the fuel tank for traces of red diesel. From what I recall the penalties for having red diesel or traces were quite severe.

gazzat22, Sep 7, 9:39am
But it comes down to having the staff and resources to police it.Governments are good at passing laws but not increasing the . resources for the enforcement agencies

esky-tastic, Sep 7, 10:43am
Deisel outboards tend to be hard to pull-start.

elect70, Sep 7, 2:06pm
Cant afford the fuel then cant afford a boat its an un neccessary luxury ( unless its a full commmercial boat & then the cost of fuel is tax deductible as part of the business )

skygone1, Sep 7, 3:54pm
elect70 wrote:
Cant afford the fuel then cant afford a boat its an un neccessary luxury ( unless its a full commmercial boat & then the cost of fuel is tax deductible as part of the business )[/quote

You obviously don't read ,have a diesel boat or ride a bike. I have never stated I cant afford the petrol, I am asking why petrol boaties have to pay a fuel Tax and diesel boaties don't. I would have thought that this is a fair Question

ceebee2, Sep 7, 4:03pm
Please let me know where I can buy non taxed diesel for my moored boat. I cannot find a pump anywhere, or which fuel fax form I can claim it back on as a non commercial diesel boat owner?

skygone1, Sep 7, 5:21pm
There is no tax on diesel in NZ apart from GST which petrol has too, in fact petrol has GST added to the road tax and acc levy that diesel does not have. Diesel road vehicles pay road tax with RUC and pay acc levy with there registration. You can fill your boat at any diesel pump without any added tax. Perhaps Auckland may have added some at there pumps,, I don't know