Victorian electric car owners receiving tax refunds ‘with interest’

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas has confirmed the state government is repaying the conversional zero- and low-emission vehicles (ZLEV) road-user charge to drivers in the coming months – with interest.

This decision to refund Victorian electric vehicle (EV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drivers comes after the High Court struck down the Victorian tax in October and found it to be unconstitutional.

“We’re now going through a process of identifying who it is that we need to rebate and we’ll go through the process of making those rebates,” said Mr Pallas, as reported by ABC News.

“I think we’ve even decided to be sufficiently generous, albeit there isn’t an obligation to pay interest, we’ll pay interest on the retention of those funds.”

Mr Pallas added the amount of money to be repaid to Victorians is around $7 million and the process will take “a few months”.

Victoria collected $3.9 million in road-user charges during the 2022/23 financial year, and overall has collected just under $10 million since enacting it in 2021.

The state first introduced its road-user charge on July 1, 2021, and when it was still in force it sat at 2.8c per kilometre for EVs and 2.3c per kilometre for plug-in hybrids (PHEVs).

Drivers had to provide photographic evidence of their odometer within 14 days of being contacted by VicRoads, to determine the kilometres travelled at the start and end of each registration period – including travel undertaken outside of Victoria.

Victoria isn’t the only state to have proposed a road-user charge. The New South Wales and Western Australian governments had previously pledged to roll out similar taxes around 2027, while South Australia pledged to do the same but reversed course following a change in government.

The ruling made by the High Court in October has stopped similar NSW and WA charges from coming into effect.

In addition to repaying the ZLEV road-user charge, the Victorian Government scrapped its $3000 EV subsidy ahead of schedule earlier this year.

MORE: Victoria weighs next steps after High Court strikes down road-user charge