AA to oppose Infringement Penalty Levy, labeling it stealth tax

The Automobile Association (AA) says an extra R100 levy to be paid over and above all traffic fines will amount to a stealth tax. A stealth tax is a tax disguised as something else.

The Infringement Penalty Levy is included in the latest draft of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (Aarto).

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula gazetted the latest draft of the act regulations last week, set to be rolled out in the middle of next year.

AA Spokesperson, Layton Beard says the reasoning behind the levy is unjustifiable. “When you look at the reasoning behind including it, it’s to administer the fine process. And in our view, that should be covered certainly by the fines. The money generated from the Infringement Penalty Levy (IPL) will be in the order of billions. We reject this outright. In our view, it’s similar to saying to someone, ‘well, you have to pay to have your taxes submitted and it’s unfair and unjust.”

Reaction to the latest draft of Aarto: Layton Beard

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Full submission

The AA says it will publish a full submission against the IPL that has been included in the Aarto.

Beard has described the levy as a stealth tax disguised as something else. “The fine amount should cover the administration of the process and not an additional amount that we feel is being added on at the end as a stealth tax. Especially because the money that is generated will go to the RTIA and not to the national fiscus.

“We are going to be publishing our formal full submission as well as an executive summary to the submission sometime later this week, hopefully, tomorrow. That will be up on our website and we urge all motorists to go and have a look at that submission and if they agree with our point of view to actually sign that submission and we will be submitting the full report to parliament ahead of the deadline on 1 December.”

Source: SABC News (sabcnews.com)