Petrol tax scams

The Government has been caught red handed ripping off motorists, and the longer the debate rages over the GST-induced spike in petrol excise, the deeper the hole the Government is digging for itself.

Scam 1
The Prime Minister made a 'core promise' that the price of petrol would not rise as a result of GST.
That core promise was ditched when the reduction in the level of excise was insufficient to compensate for the extra tax imposed by the introduction of GST.

Scam 2
Scam number two occurred when the index fed adjustments to the excise rate were affected by the change in level of inflation.
During the past two quarters, inflation increased as a result of GST. Consequently, there has been a cascading effect: the effect of one tax (ie. GST) has directly lead to the increase of another tax (ie. excise).
That effect continues forever (or until the GST effect is removed from the underlying calculations).

Scam 3
Motorists are only too aware of those two scams. Now they have been rocked with a new revelation regarding the use of their petrol taxes.
In a report issued by the Auditor-General's department, it would seem that the Transport Department has been creaming off billions of motorists' petrol dollars and not spending it on road infrastructure. Of the 4.95 cents per litre that is required by law to be spent on roads, only 3.1 cents per litre has actually been spent on building and maintaining federal roads.
The creamed-off dollars have been diverted to other government initiatives.

Scam 4
Scam number four relates to the use of the balance of taxes collected from motorists.
Based on the latest excise rates to be published by the Government (see page 250), the tax take on a litre of leaded petrol is 42.016 cents per litre (39.643 cents for unleaded petrol).
So! Of the 42 cents collected, 11.8% is required to be spent on building and maintaining roads. In reality only 7.4% is spent. That means 92.6% of the tax motorists pay is swallowed up into consolidated revenue.

Scam 5
Scam number 5 is the non-accountability by the Government for those funds.
For all of the information published by the Government on its stewardship, there is no accounting to motorists of where their taxes are spent and why they are not used for transport infrastructure development.
Motorists are treated as dummies. To add insult to injury, Government ministers unveil the occasional grandiose plan to pump additional funding into roads, especially just before an election, in an attempt to placate aggrieved motorists suffering under the weight of petrol charges that are heavily laden with taxes.
In a country that suffers from the tyranny of distance, how can any government justify not developing the best road and transport system? To do otherwise is to invite inefficiency.
How can any government fail to satisfy the requirements of the law?
How can any government fail to account for its actions to the very people it taxes?
Current and future governments must be accountable for the taxes they raise and where the tax dollars are spent.
Motorists are rightfully angry: they have been deceived. If a petition was circulated at every service station condemning the government for its actions, it is a fair bet it would be signed by every motorist in Australia as a reminder to governments that they are servants of the people and not vice versa.
The Minister in charge of the latest taxpayer rip-off, Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson has apparently sacked two of his advisers over the debacle. Accountability should not stop there. The entire process of spending and petrol taxes should be reviewed and motorists should cease being used as easy tax prey.