Reduced subsidies for fuel prices as fuel tax cuts… Truck owners “no benefit from cuts”

Diesel and LPG subsidies lowered by 37~116 won per L… Government “Supporting Difficulties in Other Ways”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Yoon Bo-ram = It was confirmed that the government lowered the fuel price subsidy paid for trucks and taxis along with the fuel tax cut.

There are voices of dissatisfaction in the freight transportation industry.

However, the government’s position is that the oil price subsidy was originally designed to be linked to changes in fuel tax and cannot be arbitrarily adjusted to provide benefits.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on the 14th, the government implemented a 20% reduction in fuel tax on the 12th and lowered the unit price of subsidies for fuel prices for trucks and taxis for a certain amount of fuel.

According to the revised guidelines, the unit price of subsidy for each vehicle type is from 345.54 won to 239.79 won per L for high-class express buses, freight cars, and diesel taxis, and from 380.09 won to 263.76 won for route buses including regular express buses, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) taxis were lowered from 197.97 won to 160.98 won, respectively.

The oil price subsidy was introduced to alleviate the tax burden on the transportation industry as the fuel tax on diesel and LPG was raised due to the energy tax reform in 2001.

The subsidy payment unit price is determined by subtracting the fuel tax amount as of June 2001 (183.21 won per liter of diesel, 23.39 won per liter of LPG) from the fuel tax as of the date of purchase of fuel.

In the end, when the fuel tax goes up, the subsidy goes up, and when the fuel tax goes down, the subsidy goes down accordingly.

If the recently implemented 20% reduction in fuel tax is 100% reflected in the consumer price, diesel will be lowered by 116 won per liter and LPG butane by 40 won.

Considering that the oil price subsidy has been reduced by 105.75 to 116.33 won per liter for diesel and 36.99 won for LPG, there is virtually no cost reduction effect experienced by workers in the freight transportation industry.

In this regard, on the 12th, on the bulletin board of the Cheong Wa Dae national petition, ‘For whom is the fuel tax cut? A petition titled ‘Don’t cut subsidies’ was posted.

The author said, “If you cut the fuel tax by 100 won and cut the fuel price subsidy by 100 won as if you’re fond of it, the benefit to freighters is 0 won.”

The author of another petition titled ‘Who is the policy for lowering the oil price subsidy?’ said, “The oil price subsidy for trucks has fallen, but gas station prices remain the same.”

However, the government is of the opinion that it is difficult to arbitrarily adjust the subsidy because the subsidy for oil prices is stipulated to be linked with the fuel tax under the Freight Vehicle Transportation Business Act.

In addition, when the fuel tax rises, the oil price subsidy also rises to reduce the burden, so if the fuel price subsidy is maintained even though the fuel tax has been lowered, there may be criticisms against equity.

An official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said, “We are well aware of the difficult situation in the freight transportation industry due to the urea water crisis, and we are continuing to meet and discuss, but we are not currently reviewing measures such as adjusting oil price subsidies.”

“We are taking other measures to reduce the burden on truck owners, such as monitoring the fuel tax cut so that it can be quickly reflected in the actual oil price and reflecting the change in oil price in the safe fare system every three months,” he said.

bryoon@yna.co.kr

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2021/11/14 15:22 Send