rish road tax blow
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IRISH GOVERNMENT has dealt another serious blow to the try's road haulage industry with the announcement of a 10 per increase in road tax for commercial vehicles, reports our Irish rspondent.
is is just one of the provi; in what has been des d as "the toughest Budget ecades" and comes only :s after a 12p increase in the of a gallon of derv.
a new road tax for a 32.5 a articulated lorry will be 17 (£736) and for a rigid twovehicle it will beIR£495.
adictably enough, the road age industry, which is aly crippled by the recession, reacted sharply. "The road ncreases place an unbearburden on the viability of y road haulage firms," said Walsh, president of the Irish i Haulage Association in a rrlent following the Budget.
he road tax was initiated to ide the road fund with suffit monies to develop a modeffective road infrastructure. wtunately it has never been I for this purpose. Instead it been used to finance the to-day expenditure of the iequer and we now have the ous honour of having the ;t road system in Europe."
a also pointed out that the
I haulage industry had been ared earlier in the year by the ige increases imposed by Vlinister on diesel fuel. "With world glut of oil we could 3 expected to be able to take antage of any fall in the unit of fuel prices," he said.
n an even more ominous e, Finance Minister Alan as indicated in his Budget 3ch that the transport induswill not be benefiting from fall in oil prices. "Because of world market situation, it is acted that there will be a sig:ant fall in oil prices in cornmonths," he said.
he Government proposes to orb some of this reduction at retail level by increasing the ise duty on petrol and other J vehicle fuels. "Because of varying factors which innce the timing and size of the I am not in a position at this to state what the precise ise increase will be, or when y will be applied," he said.
ish importers and transport is are less than satisfied with Dukes' measures to relieve the g delays caused by the imposi tion of vat at point of entry.
In his Budget speech, Mr Dukes revealed that he would be making a concession for those companies primarily involved in manufacturing for export. Firms which export 75 per cent or more of their production will be allowed to import their raw materials and components without payment of vat from April 1.
However, most companies say that this will only "scratch the surface" and do nothing to ensure a speedier throughput for imports. Mr Dukes acknowledged the problem: "I am aware of the problems that the changes introduced last year in the arrangements for payment of vat on imports have caused for industry and business generally.
"The Government is committed to resolving these problems as soon as it is feasible to do so. While there is little revenue yield from the new system, there would be a substantial loss of revenue were it dismantled. Given the present financial constraints, it is not possible to make major changes in this area at this stage," he said.