Road Tax: Strange Game Played For Drivers' Money

Why do the authorities reject drivers' initiatives?

The road tax in Belarus will not be tied to a vehicle's run-on operation.

The drivers who made such an offer have received a reply to their appeal, blizko.by. reports.

They wrote:

- For some years now, they have been discussing the road tax and have not reached a decision that would suit the majority of drivers. Drivers ask to include the fee to the cost of fuel, rightly noting that the fee is not proportional to the actual use of roads. However, the State rejects this request, arguing that it means a general increase in product prices.

Taking into account the abovementioned, we propose two changes for undergoing technical inspection and paying the road tax:

To calculate the cost of road tax from the vehicle's run-on operation between inspection intervals (once a year, once every two years or every 20-10 thousand kilometres).

To replace time intervals with actual run-on operation of the car, as car manufacturers do, for example, 10 thousand and to remove the border of 10 years reducing the interval of technical inspection.

The answer from the Ministry of Finance has been received. It was signed by Deputy Minister Dzmitry Kiyko. He said:

- The "road tax" based on run-on operation of the car is not supported due to the impossibility of reliable control over its actual parameters, as various abuses are possible.

The Belarusian authorities have been playing a strange game round the road tax, paid with the drivers' money, for a long time. On December 27 last year, Deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Kukharau said at a meeting with the staff of Baranavichy plant of automatic lines that the final decision on the possibility of separating the transport tax from the procedure of technical inspection of cars would be taken in Belarus in early 2020.

However, no decision on this issue has been taken yet. Independent experts note that the main stumbling block could be the trivial unwillingness of the authorities to deprive themselves of the income, received at the expense of the Belarusian drivers.

Indeed, Br301.3 million of road tax is already planned to be collected from the drivers in 2020. This is stated in an explanatory note to the draft law "On Budget" for next year, Minsk-News reports.

According to the plans, the republican road fund income will amount to Br616.4 million in 2020. Another Br156.5 million will be allocated from the budget.

The main sources of income of the republican road fund will be the state duty for the issuance of permits to allow the vehicle to participate in road traffic - Br301.3 million. In addition, Br268.9 million will be collected for driving along toll roads.

Br3.7 million will be allocated from the national road fund to the consolidated budget of Minsk, Br26 million - of Brest region, 22.7 million - of Vitsebsk region, 23.2 million - of Homel region, 22.7 million - of Hrodna region, 36.1 million - of Minsk region and 15.9 million - of Mahiliou region. The total amount of allocated subventions will make up Br150.6 million.