In the past few decades several developments have lead to a new view on the division of roles between the public and the private sectors when performing public tasks. Developments like the application of information technology on a large scale combined with the notions of new public management increased the involvement of the private sector in public service. Now it seems that the private sector is being granted a prominent role in one of the most public of public tasks, taxation, in particular free flow, GPS based, electronic road user tax. Next to various technical challenges this leads to new questions like how to get the levying of a tax financed by a private company. It appears that many factors play a role in the way the various actors, public authorities, toll charging companies and financers behave in this type of Public Private Partnership process. This particular type of charging, using an on-board-unit in the vehicle requires large investments in electronical equipment at the start of a project.

In this paper the arguments and considerations of the parties involved are being analysed. The unorthodox approach is not a technical one, focussing on systems and public administrative processes, how interesting they may be, but one that looks at the entire phenomenon of outsourcing a task so public as taxation to the private sector. The question is whether public electronic road user charges, levied as a tax, can be ‘designed, build, financed, maintained and operated’ as a PPP. In particular the focus of the analysis will be on the financing of the electronic road user tax. What are the issues when privately financing public electronic road user tax? In this paper the issues are being inventoried from different angles. The conclusion on how to establish the private financing of a public electronic road user charge is still evolving and it is too early to draw final conclusions on this research in this contribution.