Over 900 sign petition demanding lower car tax

Over 900 have signed a petition posted on Change.org by the Malta Automobile Club to reduce vehicle taxation.

“This number of people is much larger than any pre-budget consultation meeting promoted by the authorities, and this request may not be ignored by the finance and transport ministers,” Alfred Farrugia, the survey’s promoter, said.

Vehicle taxation in Malta as a percentage of total taxation is the highest in the European Union, as documented by the European Commission and Eurostat. 

“Both vehicle registration tax and the annual circulation tax are exorbitantly high in some cases. The policy on the annual circulation tax is flawed. There are cars that pay an annual circulation tax of €680 – which keeps increasing every year – or more based on the CO2 emissions,” Farrugia said of the annual licence tax that is based on car size, its age and carbon emissions.

“What this policy does not take into account is the number of miles such a car is driven during the year. Smaller cars with lower emissions might be driven much more than the larger car, so the latter produces less pollution than the smaller car. Incidentally, the annual circulation tax of a larger car in Malta, which increases every year, is 12 times as much as the same car used to pay in the United States. The annual circulation tax in the US was $128 every two years, not €680 every year and rising,” Farrugia said.

Farrugia also complained that only a small proportion of vehicle taxation was being invested in road construction and improvements. “This year, the government has estimated a revenue of €104.2 million from vehicle taxation, but it has allocated only €11.8 million for road construction and improvements, apart from other EU funds. So what has the government done with the other €92 million collected?”