I read in today's Telegraph that about 10 days ago Guernsey introduced changes to their motoring taxes. Fuel has been raised 16p a litre - ouch, but road tax has been scrapped.
The basis of this is that you pay tax on the amount of fuel you use, and this is directly based upon how much you use your car and how economical it is. What a simple solution.
It was sumised that for the UK to adopt this would mean fuel would rise by 10p per litre as we do more miles. Would you be prepared to pay this extra to avoid having to pay for a Road Tax Licence?
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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I would! Everybody would pay tax pro rata to their engine size and how far they drive; the tax could not be avoided or dodged and tourists would have to pay for the privilege of using our roads. A result! It won't happen soon as it would cause redundancies at DVLA!
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That would be a little unfair to Motability users who don't have to pay for their tax discs.
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Let me get this right.
I currently pay 175 quid for my RFL. I use approximately 2000 litres of fuel per year. So, under the alternative scheme, I would be paying the equivalent of 200 quid.
No, not interested. Almost all of those litres are for getting to and from work. Public transport is not an option for my commuting times and routes.
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{first sentence removed - DD}
That would be a very unfourtunate outcome in your particular case. However you can not deny that in the interests of equity, ensuring that the heavier users pay the most and tax avoidence, scrapping the road fund license and applying it via a fuel duty does make the most sense. Also I dont see why disabled users should not pay for use of the roads like anyone else, its not as though their use of the roads is in any way different, the ability to park anywhere at anytime is much more appropriate and practical.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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They also get a very good deal on cars. My friend has a (110% justified) Astra 1.8 auto that her total outlay over three years (except fuel) will be £250. That's about one month's payment if she was to lease it - 30-40 times cheaper than it would be for me.
She's paraplegic, I think it's absolutely right that she gets this, but it's a lot cheaper.
As for the road tax idea, it would cost me a lot more, but I'm a high mileage driver, so that feels fair. Although I'd prefer it didn't happen from a personal standpoint.
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the disabled could be given a tax break if it was thought to be that unfair
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tax unfair break
Does not compute?
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On the line of unfair breaks what about visually impaired people getting a TV Licence for £5? Generous but hardly well thought through ie does not compute as mss1tw says!
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Being blunt - road tax is dirt cheap. I pay just under £200 a year for the 'priviledge' of driving on our sometime awful roads. So thats just over 50p per day. It's not a lot really is it?
For Road Tax to really work, it should be raised for the heaviest users so large cars of whatever type pay a lot more - and I know I wuld have to pay it with my thirsty Subarus. I like the idea of scrapping it, as the cost of adminstrating it must be close to the cost of a tax disc, so dropping it and putting it on fuel would be very efficient.
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As I have a car and a bike i'm all in favour.
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it a good idea and the tax disc could be replaced by an insurance mot disc to show that you are legal although database makes this not really needed
its been a long time since I had a car which would beat 30mpg ,maybe it would make me think about it
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A lot of people these days seem to have many cars per house-hold, scrapping road tax would surely lead to even more cars lying around? Thinking of people that like to have a garage of old classics already on dirt cheap insurance, so no tax would make it even more inviting.
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A lot of people these days seem to have many cars per house-hold, scrapping road tax would surely lead to even more cars lying around? Thinking of people that like to have a garage of old classics already on dirt cheap insurance, so no tax would make it even more inviting.
But there are already steps that can be taken if someone has a garden full of rust, primarily under the environmental health, I think. Obviously, if the vehicles aren't raod worthy, they can't be stored on the road, so that isn't a problem, and at the end of the day a car doing nothing in a garden pollutes the atmoisphere less than even the most effecient engine running a round town.
This would tax people who use the most fuel.
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Richy Yes but if the cars are lying around they aren't being driven, and if they aren't being driven they aren't polluting so no problem. Tax on fuel is dead simple, although I agree there are some special cases Motability etc. For 99% of us we would would pay for much we use our cars and how fuel efficient they are. Seems very fair to me.
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so what?
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sorry meant to be on the message above
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Yes, I would be in favour of it, even more so than the rediculous congestion charging schemes where each car is tracked by a little black box. I do not wish my movements to be tracked and charging at peak hours is similarly stupid, do they imagine people drive to work at the same time because the WANT to? Apparently nobody in whitehall generally goes beyond Kensington on a regular basis and therefore has no awareness that in the real world for commerce to work people have to be in the office at the same time. So tax fuel, then I can do 1500 miles a year in a DB9 and be happy that I'm paying in proportion to its emissions rather than a £5000 tax disc for it, when my day to day A3 diesel emits more gunk in 20k.
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It's a very simple, logical, fair transparent and efficient way of taxing road use in this country.
Which means there is absolutely no way this government will bring it in.
Far better to give some hideously expensive and inefficient road-pricing scheme to a company with a number of former government ministers on the board of directors, or the promise of seats to existing ministers when they've been booted out off power (can't come too soon). Makes far more sense.
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It's a very simple, logical, fair transparent and efficient way of taxing road use in this country. Which means there is absolutely no way this government will bring it in. Far better to give some hideously expensive and inefficient road-pricing scheme to a company with a number of former government ministers on the board of directors, or the promise of seats to existing ministers when they've been booted out off power (can't come too soon). Makes far more sense.
Time for a PFI scheme!!!
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Hi, been a lurker on this excellent forum for a while now, but thought I'd chip in for a change.
I think there are other reasons the government won't simply replace road tax with an increased fuel tax - sensible idea that it is.
There's been a lot of progress in alternative fuels, including electric cars, but how can the government tax these new fuels? In some cases it's not going to be as simple as a fuel levy, as with petrol. If you can charge your electric car by plugging it in at home then the government can't easily tax your car's 'fuel' use. So instead they'll rely on road pricing. The new European GPS system will supposedly be much more accurate and less prone to errors than the US one, and will be the heart of any road-pricing scheme.
Not that I agree with road pricing (I'm strongly against it), but that's what I believe the governments thinking might be.
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I think with the new green tax regime that electric cars are prefered assuming that the electricity is less poluting so taxing it wouldnt be the priority
I dont know what is worse - pollution or maintaining the roads
In my ill informed opinion if you (me) have the option to get up 30 mins earlier and get a extra 15min of work done (taken off the journey) during the day rather than when I get home that is brilliant
I do not understand 9 to 5 ers who are in the same place every day but I will not tell them not to drive I justt think they should Q - more bus lanes and 2 person lanes. It will cause havoc but in the long run they will get the bus and it WILL get better.
It is a right to be able to drive but it doesnt mean it should be easy.
If the traffic gets worse I will get up earlier and get home earlier - thats life.
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I agree. In fact my employer already recognises that many people commute long distances to work at our office, so our basic hours are 10 til 6, which makes the commuting times much more bearable. I also car share with two other colleagues, so I only have to drive once every three weeks. In effect I'm already doing a small bit to help reduce congestion.
However you don't think the government will want to give up its revenue stream if cars go electric do you? They'll replace the fuel tax with road pricing, and so electric cars will have to pay their way too.
Electric cars aren't necessarily that much better for the environment - their power comes from power stations ultimately, which unless they're nuclear aren't carbon neutral. Also the batteries take a lot of resources to make, use a lot of very toxic chemicals, and are a major problem for recycling and disposal, but that's sort of going off-subject.
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The highest milage drivers in the country are business users. Their fuel bills would rise out of all proportion to what they now pay in road tax. Of course, the directors of these companies would fund the increased costs out of their own pockets, wouldn't they?
No way would they put their prices up to recoup the cost so we would all end up paying anyway, even non-drivers and low milage motorists.
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Electric cars aren't necessarily that much better for the environment - their power comes from power stations ultimately, which unless they're nuclear aren't carbon neutral. Also the batteries take a lot of resources to make, use a lot of very toxic chemicals, and are a major problem for recycling and disposal, but that's sort of going off-subject.
Nuclear power stations aren't exactly friendly either. With the cost (not just financial) of building them, mining the fuel, and dealing with the waste, and it will be private companies that run them for a profit with subsadies for building and (or at the very least) the gvt bearing any risk, which ultimatley means in the event of an 'accident' we the taxpayers will end up paying for the clean up while the bosses of the companies get pay rises.
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This system means that:
You drive a large car - you pay more tax
You do many miles - you pay more tax
You get stuck in traffic- you pay more tax
The system collects tax via an existing system, is extremely difficult to evade, and avoids the cost of the RFL 'system', although we may need a 'this car is MOT'd and insured tag, but that's it.
But why should the government do that? Instead they can achieve these objectives by using a vastly complicated system of vehicle tracking and 'road pricing' which employs armies of government employees to administer.
Do I sound cynical?
JS
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