Amid claims that the gas tax should be raised to solve the fine dust problem, the government has started drawing a line saying "it does not review at all."



NGOs and some of the ruling party are arguing that the energy tax rate for transportation needs to be adjusted in the mid to long term, but the government is in a position that the utility of the gas tax increase is not so great.



An official from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said today (25th), "I don't think the gas tax increase is very convincing at this point."



At the very least, it was made clear that there are no plans to promote a gas tax increase at the government level.



The increase in diesel tax is one of the ways to reduce fine dust.



As fine dust emerges as a social disaster and related costs increase, the main goal is to reduce fine dust emissions by raising taxes to reduce diesel consumption.



In fact, diesel vehicles are pointed out to emit more fine dust than gasoline or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vehicles.



According to the Civic Organization's Energy Conversion Forum, diesel vehicles account for more than 98% of fine dust emissions among road-moving pollutants.




The government has also guided the reduction of old diesel vehicles with a large amount of fine dust through the'Comprehensive Plan for Fine Dust Management' announced last year.



However, the share of diesel use remains large.



As of December last year, diesel accounted for 45.7% of transportation fuel consumption, twice that of gasoline (22.5%).



Accordingly, the Energy Conversion Forum prepared a report on the'A Study on the Improvement of the Energy Price System for Transportation and the Oil Price Subsidy System', which states that an increase in diesel tax can reduce fine dust and increase tax revenue, and recently submitted it to the Presidential Council on Climate and Environment.



According to the report, if the fuel tax imposed on diesel vehicles is raised to the level of 120% of gasoline, the emission of fine dust (PM10) and ultrafine dust (PM2.5) decrease by up to 7.4% compared to 2016, and diesel revenue is the highest compared to 2018. It will increase by KRW 1.02 trillion.



An opinion that weighed considerable weight on the gas tax increase was submitted to a pan-national organization directly under the President.



The National Climate and Environment Conference plans to propose to the government to adjust the prices of automobile fuels, such as diesel and gasoline, in the next month after sufficiently collecting related opinions including the report.



Recently, related discussions have also been raised at the ruling party.



In addition, Democratic Party Rep. Park Hong-geun pointed out that "when looking at the social cost of each fuel that reflects the cost of environmental damage and traffic congestion, gasoline is the highest, but the tax rate is higher than diesel," .



He said, "We need to consider adjusting the energy tax rate for transportation in the mid to long term while maintaining subsidies for oil prices to prevent damage to accidental consumers."



However, the government is in a position that virtually no gas tax increase is reviewed.



This is because we believe that the effect of reducing fine dust due to an increase in gas tax is not realistically significant.



In fact, it is pointed out that commercial lorry transporters receive oil price subsidies for the increase in fuel tax, so raising the gas tax to reduce the consumption of diesel vehicles is difficult.



Another problem is that small, self-employed people who are not eligible for subsidies are hurt when the diesel tax increases.



For example, truck vendors who are not eligible for subsidies and do not have business registration may be hit directly by an increase in gas tax.



In the end, if the gas tax is raised, the fine dust emission remains the same, and only the tax is raised.



(Photo = Yonhap News)