Labour: Tax on Utes

Where is the CCP National Party on this farmer and tradesperson tax on their Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger. They're nowhere, weak as weasel piss are the CCP National Party of Wokery Aotearoa. 

Saw Newshub Nation this morning. In all of it, with the Minister of Transport being interviewed, not once was it put to him or even stated anywhere that this $ 3,000 charge is a tax on hard working, often self-employed businesspeople. This coming right after the worst Depression in the country's history. 

So, I'll help the CCP National twits out with some robust and cogent arguments against this charge. However, to begin with I should address the Green's, Julie Anne Genter, who quite misleadingly stated that the amount is tax deductible. Err, wrong, the sum is a capital charge and can only be clawed back as depreciation on the asset. The effect of a capital charge like this will be to put a handbrake on economic growth. 

The Minister indicated his main goal was to change buyer behaviour. Okay, let's look at that: 

1. Generally, buyer behaviour only changes when you offer something better to solve a problem. Talking 4WD vehicles, you may remember the ubiquitous farm vehicle used to be the venerable Landrover. It still remains better in some applications, most notably climbing steep grades. The Suzuki Jimny is also superior to the Hilux in some applications. But the Hilux won the war overall, and the Ford Ranger is essentially a direct copy of it. That's because, for the bulk of tasks the Hilux does it better than those competing brands. If you want to change behaviour, offer a vehicle that does things better. 

2. Will buyers shift to preferred brands? Possibly not, the law of unintended consequences kicks in. What I think will happen is two things; tradesmen (and some farmers) will go bigger, into the 4.5 - 8 tonne range. There they can obtain crew cabs, split bodies, 3-way tippers, tail-lifts, side lifts and small cranes. They're also available 4WD. Then some will move smaller as desired, but start pulling trailers and fitted roof racks. Loads will be less secure this way, resulting in more accidents. 

3. Lastly, are engines also taxed? The refurbishment market will skyrocket. Instead of replacing the Hilux, owners will repower with late model units imported from Japan. Basically, you can get an older Hilux and for a quarter the cost of new, make that older Ute look and perform really good. 

What we'll see is an ageing fleet, more trucks on the road and more smaller vehicles carrying insecure or undesirable loads. Those are your talking points CCP Nats, get to work, or are you waiting for Beijing's instructions on how to think?