Road tax

Road tax, known by various names around the world, is a tax which has to be paid on, or included with, a motorised vehicle to use it on a public road. All states and territories require an annual vehicle registration fee to be paid in order to use a vehicle on public roads; the cost of which varies from state to state and is dependent on the type of vehicle. The fee is known colloquially as 'rego' (pronounced with a soft g, short for registration). Queensland road tax is based on the number of cylinders or rotors the vehicle's engine has. There is also a small traffic improvement fee. New South Wales road tax is paid based on the vehicle's tare weight. Passenger cars pay a registration fee based on the engine displacement and power output (degressive towards 2014 (66% in 2012, 33% in 2013, 0% in 2014) and environmental criteria such as CO2 g/km output (increasingly towards 2014). The more CO2 g/km the car produces, the higher the fee will be. Every year, the plate number owner has to pay the annual road tax contribution. This tax is based on the engine displacement (0-799cc = fiscal HP 4, above 800cc each 200cc is one class higher). Due to CO2-based regulations, diesel cars with above average displacement (>2,000cc) are favoured, and petrol cars with bigger displacements are put at a disadvantage). A supplementary annual fee has to be paid for cars that run on LPG/CNG (0-799cc: €84/year, 800–2,499cc; €148/year and >2,500cc: €208/year) to compensate financial loss for the state due to the absence of excise at the pump. In Brazil, the states may collect an annual Vehicle Licensing Fee (Taxa de Licenciamento Veicular) which has a fixed value for each vehicle category determined by each state. In addition, each state may impose a Vehicle Property Tax (Imposto sobre a Propriedade de Veículos Automotores), with a rate up to 4%. The Costa Rican car property tax, commonly referred to as Marchamo, is among the highest in Latin America, with rates that can go up to 3.5% of the fiscal value of the vehicle yearly.