Tweed council chooses cheap foreign cars over Aussie-made
AS the Australian car industry continues to shed jobs and the viability of car makers such as Ford and Holden remains doubtful, government fleets are increasingly made up of imported vehicles.
Tweed Shire Council's director of technology and corporate services, Troy Green, said the council would prefer to buy Australian made cars but increased fringe benefit tax costs resulted in significant additional costs for staff driving local cars.
"With the changes to FBT, the upfront purchase price of the vehicle directly affects the FBT and subsequently the weekly lease rate that an individual or company will pay.
"This means that many individuals with private or government fleet vehicles have opted for a cheaper import to offset the additional taxation costs.
"A difference in $5000 purchase cost can have an impact of around $50 per week to the lessee under the new flat FBT rate.
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"This is why cheaper, foreign imports are more attractive and Australian cars are all the more uneconomical," Mr Green said.
Like most other councils, the Tweed has a significant number of imported vehicles in its fleet.
"By having a differential FBT rate for Australian built cars, it would encourage government and fleet buyers to move back to Australian built cars.
"Such a policy would have a minimum impact on the federal budget as fleet owners are currently just opting for cheaper vehicles so as not to incur the additional FBT charges as a result of the government policy."
"For example, a flat rate of 20% FBT could be applied to foreign imports and a discounted FBT rate of 10 or 15% could be applied to Australian built cars," Mr Green said.
