Personally I don't give a monkeys as it will to my mind simplify car use, but I do tend to agree with this statement taken from the page in question.
12/03/2014 09:13:16 Spud Murphy Commented:
Fair enough, offering different ways of paying for motorists is a good idea. But if you want 'fairness' why not put the 'tax' on the price of fuel? The more you use, the more you use the maintained roadways, the more you pay. That way if your car sits on your drive you don't pay for everyone else. Plus, as bigger cars use more fuel, generally speaking, they will continue to pay slightly higher 'tax'. I say 'tax' because we all know it's an excise licence and not a road fund licence, meaning the government can spend the revenue on anything it likes and not repairing roads - See more at:
http://www.motoring.co.uk/cgi-bin/mo...2#gotocomments
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Unfortunately, taxing fuel is one of the most emotive subjects relating to taxation in recent years, so adding another bit of tax on it would not be an option any government would want, especially as they would prefer to just put another 1p per litre on without linking it to anything. This way they get two taxes that they can manipulate, so if tax on fuel is in the papers, just increase tax on the vehicle excise duty, and vice versa if required.
Also, by putting road fund license on to the cost of the fuel, the ability to incentivise drivers toward vehicles that emit less CO2 is lost.
So, what most of you are advocating is that a motorist (me, for example) who have purposely and conscientiously downsized from a Land Rover Discovery to a tiny car (which just happens to attracts zero 'excise duty') in order to save fuel, create less emissions, use less tyre tread, and create a smaller footprint in general, in order to help the planet, should now be penalised rather than rewarded for that by having to pay extra for the privilege through higher fuel costs?
Emissions are not directly linked to fuel consumption though, Vanguard. Take a car of ten years ago that did 40mpg and compare it to a car of today that does 40mpg and the emission of the new car will be much, much lower. The government has to incentivise lower emissions thanks to its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.
To be honest I agree with putting the duty on Fuel. Especially as it possible to own a big V8 petrol engine car, but because its pre-70's, pay zero road tax!! Does not seem very fair to me. Also I own a second car which I use to do about 2000miles a year, but my road tax is the same as someone who does 30,000 a year. My choice I know, but I still have to also tax my primary car as the same time.
The down side is that transport companies will have to pay more - which in turn will put prices up generally.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
If you are VAT registered you can claim back VAT on any purchases, so why not allow haulage companies to do something similar with this new fuel tax? As with VAT, it could be banded by industry, so if you are a haulier you can claim back 80% of the tax, an ice-cream van gets 50%, but if you are a lawyer you can only claim back 10% (or nothing).
I have said it before, putting more tax on fuel instead of having a tax disc would be a huge mistake. As mentioned above, haulage companies would be paying more for their fuel, thereby increasing their running costs. So to offset that, their prices would rise, and to offset that the cost of ALL goods transported by road would increase.
If that happens, even people who don't own a car would get penalised due to the increased costs of goods.
I'm NOT advocating higher fuel duty - in fact I think that reducing it would be far more beneficial to the economy.
All I'm saying is that fuel is a much more sensible place to "tax" vehicles as more fuel burnt = more pollution.
It would be much fairer that way.
An artificial (and pointless - if you do the sums VED is a small fraction of what you pay for using a vehicle each year) tax helps no one.
Cheers,
No such thing as Road Tax.
http://ipayroadtax.com/
You are all missing something here....
They keep adding to tax on fuel, and road tax. They get it both ways.
Removing road tax alltogether will never happen, not in UK, not here. If CY manages to collect over 100 million on this tiny island, just imagine how much HMRC are raking in. I hardly use the car nowadays, or should I say hardly on long distances, if I tally the expenses, the road tax + insurance is quite a bit higher than my petrol costs in a year. (and I drive a 1.6 banger )