New Fuel Tax Credits Alliance Publication
AFPA is a member of the Fuel Tax Credits (FTC) Alliance. The FTC Alliance represents regional businesses (e.g. agriculture, forestry, fisheries, maritime, tourism and mining industries) concerned about campaigns over recent years advocating for the removal of FTCs. The new Fuel Tax Credits publication is the third in a series of publications which set out the facts on fuel tax credits. The issue is of vital importance to regional industries. Diesel is an unavoidable input for many regional businesses operating heavy machinery off-road and off the electricity grid. Removing or reducing FTCs would not remove a ‘subsidy’ rather it would impose a deliberate distortion into the tax system by increasing business costs for industries that are reliant on diesel and other fuels.
Fuel Tax Credits booklet
The Fuel Tax Credits booklet is produced by the Fuel Tax Credits Coalition, an alliance of eleven representative bodies drawn from a range of industries including agriculture, forestry, fishing, tourism and resources. The publication outlines the key rationale for the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme. First, the fuel excise introduced to contribute to the cost of building public roads should not apply to diesel used off-road or in off-grid power generation. Second, the fuel tax credits scheme is founded on a fundamental principle of sound tax policy, namely that taxes on intermediate business inputs are inefficient and distortionary. The agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, tourism and maritime industries represented here are some of Australia’s largest export earners and employ hundreds of thousands of Australians in regional remote areas. Any change to the Fuel Tax Credit scheme would pose significant risk to these businesses.
In April 2016, the Fuel Tax Credits Coalition released this brochure on the benefits of maintaining the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme.