Stop the fraud and extortionate interest

By: Thomas Ström 5/25/18

Lower the surcharge on the congestion taxes

 

If you have been to Stockholm or Göteborg by your car in recent years, you have surely become aware of the congestion taxes.
If you’re also one of those who have failed to pay the bill on time, you have received a surcharge of 500 SEK per occasion.
Up to now, the state has raised 1.2 billion SEK via these penalties.
If a private company would have done something like this, they would have been convicted of extortionate interest and fraud.

The background is that if you, as a car owner, forget to pay the congestion tax on time, you will receive a surcharge of 500 SEK, even if the original cost is only 10 SEK. That means a penalty of over 5 000 percent. If a private company were to do something similar, they would be forced to close shop. The company would have been classified as fraudulent. But not the state. It only keeps bringing in about 200 extra million a year.

For a long time, both the Swedish Transport Agency and the Swedish Tax Agency have stated that it is inappropriate to charge a surcharge of several thousand percent. But neither the former nor the current government has done anything about it. They see it as an extra source of income.

In Stockholm, the congestion tax was introduced in 2007 and in Gothenburg in 2013. Before the start in Gothenburg, a government investigation suggested that the rules should be amended. The proposal was based on a first delay fee of 100 SEK and, if not paid, a surcharge of 500 SEK.
But despite the investigation and proposal, not a single minister has done anything about it.

The surcharge is a fairly common topic in parliamentary motions. The latest one was on March 23 this year, when Lars Beckman (M) submitted a written question to the Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson. On April 4, she submitted the following written answer to the Riksdag website:
”The money corresponding to the income from congestion taxes, including revenues from the surcharges, go to important infrastructure initiatives. If the surcharges were to be lowered, it would mean that other money would have to be included in the framework of the congestion tax system. This would entail increased borrowings or increases in the congestion tax itself."

In other words, the state is including the surcharges of the congestion tax in its budget! Does that seem wise?
No, a do-over is imperative. Implement what the government investigation concluded five years ago; first, a reasonable delay fee of approximately 100 SEK and then a surcharge of 500 SEK.
By doing so, a large number of car owners would not feel fooled.

"Bohuslän - Europe's dump" More people are paying attention to the plastic in the ocean

By: Thomas Ström 5/18/18

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about all the plastic and other trash that spills up on the beaches of Bohuslän, a stretch of beach that is one of the dirtiest in Europe.
Now more people are also starting to pay attention to this.
The magazine GT / Expressen has also brought up this issue in their reporting.

A report team made a visit with the beach cleaners on the island Tjörn, and what they reported is truly horrifying. Along the Bohus coast, the equivalent of five bathtubs full of trash hits the shore every hour. It has gone so far that the beach cleaners, who occasionally think that they are dealing with a hopeless situation, have dubbed one of the bays at Tjörn to "Disaster Bay".

 

Here are some excerpts from the GT / Expressen article:

"Disaster Bay” is located southeast of Tjörn, but it is by no means unique. Every hour, year-round, the equivalent of five full bathtubs of trash hits the shore on the Bohus coast. Most of the litter, about 90 percent, is plastic of various kinds.

In total, approximately 7 000 cubic meters of plastic per year lands on the shores of Bohuslän, according to the foundation ”Håll Sverige Rent”. This makes the Bohus Coast one of the most untidy coastlines in Europe. The problem is so serious that Bohuslän has sometimes been called "Europe's dump".

"We often find dead birds with their stomachs full of plastic. It
makes you really sad, especially when you consider that we humans are
causing this", says beach cleaner Johan Eyssen to GT / Expressen.



Personally, I wonder how long it will take until we humans will suffer
from this. If it continues likes this, it will not be long until one
of Sweden's most popular tourist destinations will be unusable. Who is
going to be willing to swim on the west coast in the future?

Think about that when you throw your garbage into the ocean next time!


You will find the full article on GT / Expressen’s website (Swedish).

About Ströms blogg

 

Welcome to my blog. Here I will write about transport and logistics and much more ...

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