The State Will Be Collecting Time-Based Road Use Fee from 12-ton Trucks
Namely, the state is planning to start collecting a time-based road use fee from trucks that weigh over 12 tons. The Chamber is ready to support such plan of the state, provided that the entire revenue from such fee is used for road maintenance and development of road transport. This solution is an opportunity to increase financing of road maintenance by an additional 16 million euros per year. Additionally, the Chamber is of the opinion that the annual rates of the road use fee should be lower than planned and promote the use of environmentally friendly trucks.
The Chamber supports establishing a road use fee for trucks in Estonia, provided that the fee collected in the state budget is fully put into road maintenance and development of road transport. In the Chamber’s opinion, road maintenance is already now under-financed and therefore it is not possible to speed-up the improvement of the road quality.
The Chamber is in full support of the approach that a road use fee should be paid by for trucks entered into the Estonian registry as well as foreign registries, which are using Estonian roads. At the same time it is highly important that the state would carry out efficient supervision over foreign trucks who most probably stay in Estonia for only a few days. If the supervision is weak, the fee might not be collected from foreign trucks and that would decrease competitiveness of the Estonian transport sector. Additionally, an efficient penalty should be established for the businesses who have not paid the road use fee or have paid less of it.
The drafting intention (DI) of the ministry proposes two alternatives for taxing trucks: time-based and transit-based road use fee. The Chamber supports establishing a time-based road use fee. According to the intention, a difference is made between the daily and annual road use fee rate. However, the Chamber proposed establishing a separate fee rate for a week and/or month.
The Chamber also supports the approach that the road use fee depends on the engine emission class. At the same time, the Chamber is of the opinion that the fee rates set out in the DI do not sufficiently consider the environmental protection component. Therefore the Chamber expressed its opinion to the ministry that the difference in fee rates should be much larger in order to motivate businesses to use more environmentally friendly trucks.