Ecological justice, encouragement or distortion? Electric vehicle owners will continue to receive a reduced license fee/Kinan Cohen
The finance committee did not vote today as planned on approving the increase in the license fee for electric vehicles and comparing the rates to those of gasoline and diesel vehicles.
The chairman of the committee MK Moshe Gafni (Torah Judaism) took the issue off the agenda after the move led by the ministries of transportation and finance was met with opposition among the majority of committee members. They claim that it is a burden on the owners of streetcars at a time of economic crisis, many of them residents of the periphery and reservists, and that it will harm the pace of transition to vehicles without exhaust emissions in Israel.
Today, owners of electric cars are charged a licensing fee of only NIS 550 per year, compared to up to NIS 1,100-4,700 charged to owners of new gasoline and diesel vehicles, depending on the price of the vehicle. The license fee rates decrease as the vehicle ages, but even so, those who purchase, for example, an electric Porsche Tayken for more than a million shekels pay a license fee for it, as does the owner of a 2010 Suzuki Alto.
Did you come to the test with a tram? Pay like a Suzuki Alto/Kinan Cohen
In practice, this is another tax imposed on car owners, on the grounds that they have to pay for the pollution damage they create and some of it in traffic jams and taking up parking spaces. Although electric vehicles do not emit pollution from the exhaust, in Israel pollution is created during the production of electricity for them, in the power plants that are fed mainly with polluting natural gas and coal. The Treasury has been seeking to cancel the benefit for several years, and the difficulty in financing the costs of the war resulted in the initiative finally being included in the state budget.
It is doubtful whether the Minister of Transportation Miri Regev and the Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich will be able to give up the move, which should bring in about 200 million shekels per year to the state coffers. The money that will be collected will be earmarked by the Treasury to finance a transportation justice reform that Regev is promoting, and without it it will not be possible to continue and expand.
Eitan Farnes, CEO of the Association of Green Energy Companies for Israel, said in response that "We are glad that the Knesset woke up and realized that it is impossible to dismantle a comprehensive reform in vehicle taxation and approve it in stages. You need to understand the overall picture and above all understand what the policy that the tax authority promotes beyond tax collection. And if there isn't one, it's clear that we must promote the affordable electric vehicle in Israel and bridge gaps in penetration between the periphery and the center."
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