The Mitcham-Frankston tollway, also known as EastLink, will reduce commuting times in suburbs serviced by the tollway and in suburbs serviced by alternative routes, such as the untolled Springvale and Stud roads, whose congestion levels will be reduced by EastLink. The market value of this benefit (net of tolls) will be manifested as uplifts in land values in the lucky suburbs (because you have to live or work in those suburbs to get the benefit). So owners of property in those suburbs will benefit from EastLink even if they don’t use it and don’t pay the toll on it. But people who live in rental accommodation and who commute via EastLink will pay for it twice — they’ll pay the toll and their rents will go up. How equitable is that?
To satisfy the “beneficiary pays” principle, road projects must be funded out of the uplifts in land values that they cause. If a project satisfies a cost-benefit test, the total uplift will exceed the cost, so the project can be funded by clawing back only a fraction of the uplift through the tax system, leaving the rest of the uplift as an unearned windfall for the property owners.
This system can be set up in a revenue-neutral manner by abolishing payroll tax and other job-destroying State taxes, and strengthening land tax. From then on, desirable infrastructure pays for itself through the increase in taxable land values that it causes. The higher the marginal rate of land tax (or the fraction of properties to which that marginal rate applies), the greater the range of projects that become self-funding through the ensuing uplifts in land values, and the greater the range of other taxes that can be scrapped when the new system is introduced.
Property owners can only gain from this arrangement, because their tax bills don’t increase unless their property values do, and their property values don’t increase unless, in the judgment of the market, the owners are better off in spite of the tax implication. Indeed, if projects pay for themselves, they are more likely to proceed, so property owners are more likely to get the uplifts in land values. The tax means the owners get only a fraction of the uplifts, but a fraction of something is better than 100 percent of nothing!
So is there ever any need for tolls? Yes — on certain routes, at certain times of the day, tolls can prevent congestion by encouraging travel at other times. But they are not needed 24/7, and they are never needed for funding.
