Never before have more tolls been paid in Norway than last year. This will affect the budget negotiations.

Motorists paid NOK 12.1 billion in tolls last year. NAF is now asking Frp to support the demands for cuts.

The government’s proposal for next year’s state budget has been presented. It is the turn of the negotiations in the Storting. The government needs the support of FRP for a majority. So tolls become an important keyword.

Once again, a toll record is set in Norway. It arises from the recent budget proposal.

Here it is stated that last year 12.1 billion in tolls were paid in Norway. More than a year ago.

Following this record payment, NOK 14.7 billion in “now available” tolls for road projects have been entered into Transport Minister Knut Arild Hareide’s (KrF) budget.

At the same time, the FRP can look well beyond two major toll measures that were promised during government negotiations.

– An obvious paradox, says Frank Sve, Frp’s “toll general”.

Driving FRP’s victories in tolls

The 2021 budget is the last state budget of the Solberg government before next year’s elections. Polls call for a change of government.

The Granavolden platform was negotiated by the Conservatives, the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party and the Christian Democrats and presented at the Granavolden Gjæstgiveri in January 2019.

In this, the government promised to “introduce a tax deduction for toll charges.” Another promise was that the capital of the infrastructure fund would be doubled.

This is a fund owned by the Ministry of Transport and Communications with NOK 100 billion. The fund’s performance is used to reduce tolls.

None of this is fulfilled in the budget proposal.

The government still governs according to the platform, although the FRP left the government a year later.

Promises can still be fulfilled, whether in budget negotiations at the Storting this fall or when the budget is revised in May.

FRP’s fiscal policy spokesperson Sylvi Listhaug has already highlighted the reduction of the toll burden as one of FRP’s main demands towards the negotiations.

NAF asks Frp to meet the requirements

The NAF motorist interest organization asks Frp to comply with the requirements.

– Now this new deduction must take effect. It was promised in 2019, but no one has heard anything since then, says Camilla Ryste, communications manager for NAF.

The government has never specified how the tax deduction should be designed. Nor is the cost to the state quantified.

NAF, with the help of the consulting firm Multiconsult, has made a proposal on how the deduction can be designed. They foresee a deduction where you get 220 crowns in taxes saved for every 1000 crowns you pay on tolls that exceed 3300 crowns.

With a minimum deduction of NOK 3,300, the plan will affect around 1.7 million motorists. This will cost the state 2.6 billion a year.

NAF believes that the tax deduction can be framed to apply to trips where there are no good public transportation alternatives to cars. Specifically, they propose that the deduction be applied to toll passes where public transport alternatives take more than twice as long as by car and in all cases in which public transport takes more than one hour.

– If the state participates in the bill, will it not encourage local authorities to initiate even more new toll projects?

– The best thing would have been for the entire toll scheme to be scrapped. But as long as tolls exist, we welcome all solutions that can reduce costs for those who depend on the use of a car. If local authorities take advantage of increased government funding to set up even more toll projects, costs to drivers will not be reduced. We believe this will be perceived very negatively by those who pay the tolls.

FRP: toll bonanza with the Conservatives

County Leader Frank Sve on Møre og Romsdal is the FRP General Toll. He is mad:

– It is painful for the government to say that they control Granavolden, and then skip what is written there about tolls, he says.

He believes it is “an obvious paradox” that it happens at the same time that Norwegians have never paid more in tolls.

– Conservatives, KrF and Liberals are really going through a toll bonanza right now. In my own county, there are city packages here and city packages there, and tolls will solve everything. It’s totally useless, says Sve.

Sve does not want to comment on how the FRP should behave in the negotiations. He has full confidence in the Listhaug coalition and in the party leadership otherwise.

– They have been given clear guidelines in this regard. So they will have to deal with it in peace and quiet, says Sve.

– Isn’t it unreasonable to accuse the conservatives of toll bonanza now, after the FRP controlled the Ministry of Transport for almost seven years?

– We have a toll agreement this winter, with 20 billion to cut. We have really done what we can with the toll situation. This just shows that it was about time we left the government.