With transportation electrification, windfall gains from the fuel tax, which allows Quebec to recover an average of $2 billion annually, are set to run dry, so much so that the government must change it to replace it.
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“We have less and less gasoline consumption, but because there are taxes on gasoline, there will be less and less taxes that will go into government coffers,” explained Jill Beyer, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation (MTQ).
To prevent a blow, in 2019 MTQ launched its mobility finance job site, which has just expired. More than 240 partners were interviewed and 58 briefings were given, and the department is looking for a way to recover at least $2 billion annually, or the equivalent of fuel tax revenue.
The situation was analyzed in many places in the world, for example, in the USA, Norway, Sweden and Germany.
“We chose 39 tools, which are sometimes used already, but can be used differently,” the MTQ spokesperson explained.
MTQ does not want to reveal which measures will be prioritized and analyzed so as not to alert taxpayers unnecessarily. But here are some examples raised in the official documents:
Tax on charging electric cars
– fees
– encirclement toll
Reserved lanes with duty-free access
Increase in driving licenses and registration costs
Acquisition tax on luxury or electric cars
Concretely, these measures could have implications for motorists’ wallets.
What is the probability that license plates will increase by $1? This means that if there are 6 million cars registered in Quebec, that’s more than $6 million for the government. What will be analyzed is the management aspect. Is it simple, is it effective, is it fast? Mr. Bayer said.
However, the MTQ indicated that it is still in the process of analyzing the impact of various tools on households, citizens, businesses and municipalities, as explained by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Ministry of Transport for its part.
The Council of Ministers added on Wednesday evening that the selection of the procedures to be applied had not yet been made.
A report will be submitted in 2023, and elected officials will then have to act and implement some of the recommendations.
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