Road Traffic Offices – High fees call price monitors to the plan – News
- The fees charged by the road traffic authorities are still well above the costs incurred, according to a survey by the Federal Finance Administration (FFA).
- This fact bothers the price supervisor Stefan Meierhans. He estimates that around 100 million francs too much fees were charged in 2019.
- Meierhans demanded price reductions from the cantons, which demand high fees.
In 2019, fees and costs diverged the most in the canton of Ticino. The fees for driver’s and vehicle licenses, for example, exceeded the actual costs by 84 percent. In Geneva (161 percent) and Graubünden (143 percent), the fees charged by the respective road traffic authorities were significantly higher than their costs.
On average, the fee index of the Swiss road traffic authorities collected by the FFA was 123 percent. The limit of 100 percent, at which fees and costs are balanced, cannot be considered in absolute terms due to methodological difficulties, according to a statement. The determined values are at least an indication of a disproportion.
“No profit with fees”
For the Federal Price Supervisor, this is a grievance. «You shouldn’t make a profit with fees. Fees should simply cover the costs, ”says Stefan Meierhans. From his point of view, the money raised through fees belongs back to the population.
The greater the difference, the greater the need for action
In Aargau, the road traffic office is ready to demand lower fees. You have been working for a long time, so processes would be optimized or digitization used. Head of Johannes Michael Bär suggests that the vehicle registration card should cost just 25 francs instead of 40. Also quickly half less. But politics has to approve it.
Aargau plant revision of fees
The Aargau executive will also adjust the fee law. “We have to realize that we had fees that were too high in certain areas,” admits government councilor Dieter Egli (SP). The canton parliament is deliberating on next year.
Fee reductions have already taken place in other cantons. For example in the canton of Geneva, where since 2019 it has cost 75 instead of 95 francs to register a vehicle. The cantons of Basel-Landschaft, St. Gallen and Zug have also adjusted their fees since the FFA was collected in 2019.
Even so, the price watchdog remains vigilant. Meierhans wants to keep a particularly close eye on those cantons that achieve cost coverage of over 150 percent with their fees. “The greater the difference, the greater the need for action,” he says. These cantons will make a formal recommendation to the price supervisor. However, each canton ultimately decides on fee reductions.