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Road maintenance fee makes the burden on enterprises heavier
Transport companies have complained that they have been dragging out their existence because of too many kinds of fees, and that the road maintenance fee would kill them outright.
The decree which has been promulgated by the government, stipulates that from June 1, 2012, cars and motorbikes of different kinds will have to pay the road maintenance fee besides the current taxes, fees and charges.
Bui Van Quan, the owner of Vinh Quan transport company and Chair of the HCM City Cargo Transport Association, said that the decision to raise the car ownership registration tax rate from 10 percent to 15 percent in HCM City and to 20 percent in Hanoi has dealt a strong blow on car users. Therefore, the road maintenance fee would make the burden on them heavier.
Of course, transport companies will also suffer from the new type of fee. Quan said that currently, his firm has to pay more than 10 million dong for the ticket to go on the Hanoi Highway alone. If counting on the road maintenance fee which the firm has to pay from June 2012, the total fee would reach 50 million dong.
The sum of money would be paid for fuel fee, road maintenance fee, road fee paid at the stations, registration fee and insurance premiums. As for new vehicles, the enterprises would have to bear more kinds of tax and fee, such as the luxury tax, import tax, VAT tax, environment protection tax and ownership registration tax.
However, misfortune does not come alone, Quan said. He has heard that the Ministry of Transport is drafting a plan to collect the so called “private vehicle circulation fee,” suggesting to collect 20-50 million dong from every car per annum.
If the plan gets the nod from the government, people and enterprises would have grin and bear more than 10 types of fees and charges. It is estimated that people and enterprises would have to pay nearly 100 million dong a year.
Some experts have commented that the fee and petrol price increases would only influence people, not transport firms.
However, Quan said that as for the fixed fees, transport firms cannot re-negotiate with the goods owners to adjust the service fees. Therefore, the back bending load would be put on transport firms.
In principle, if vehicles’ owners pay the road maintenance fee monthly already, they would not have to pay fee more when going through fee collection stations. However, under the draft document of the Ministry of Transport, the vehicles going through the stations would still have to pay fee. (Most of the bridge and road projects have been implemented under the BOT mode - build – operation –transfer and the ministry believes that people have to pay fee to use the works).
Quan said that it is unreasonable that agencies collect road maintenance fee per vehicle monthly, and then collect BOT fee as well. The overlapping fees would make enterprises and people unbearable. Meanwhile, the petrol price has been raised by 2100 dong per liter. Immediately after the price hike, taxi firms have to raise the service fee by 1000 dong per kilometer
Meanwhile, analysts have pointed out that the maintenance fee collection from every vehicle would be unfair to the people, who do not use the vehicles, but still have to pay fee. Besides, there are also the vehicles which only operate within certain areas. As they do not circulate on roads, they do not affect the quality of bridges and roads. Therefore, they should be forced to pay these kinds of fee.
vietnamnet
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