Review of Road Tax ongoing.

[Engineer1]

If the government aren't careful they will kill growth and potentially cause unemployment problems as people can't move closer to work thanks to the housing market so price people out of longer commutes and people really could end up not being able to afford to take the job.

[SystemParanoia]

i commute a 70 mile round trip.
its a serious piss take to be honest. fuel isnt cheap to do that distance.. road tax is already criminal as it stands.. insurance is currently crippling.

this will be the straw that breaks the camels back.

stop pissing around with the fking road tax ffs.

put road tax and basic 3rd party insurance onto fuel. sorted.

[martin84]

Engineer1 said:

If the government aren't careful they will kill growth and potentially cause unemployment problems as people can't move closer to work thanks to the housing market so price people out of longer commutes and people really could end up not being able to afford to take the job.

It's funny how the Government spout a 'high tax kills growth' message for everything except motoring. Down the years normal people have been priced out of living in the cities and pushed into the outskirts, that wasn't a problem until the Government set about pricing people out of driving into the centres as well.

[dcb]

martin84 said:

It's funny how the Government spout a 'high tax kills growth' message for everything except motoring. Down the years normal people have been priced out of living in the cities and pushed into the outskirts, that wasn't a problem until the Government set about pricing people out of driving into the centres as well.

No one has mentioned yet that by taxing motorways more than
they are already, folks will use far far more dangerous non-motorway
routes.

Motorways are the safest type of road by far and their
use should be encouraged, not discouraged.

Unless you fancy road deaths per year going back up over 5,000.

[martin84]

Quite. Motorways, A roads, bridges etc were first built specifically to get people out of the towns and cities and to make journeys quicker and safer. That was the whole point.

[anonymous-user]

martin84 said:

There's around 33 million registered vehicles in the UK with a total tax take of £7billion in VED, so around £210 per car. Switching pre-2001 cars to a flat tax rate of £195 a year and post-2001 cars to £245 a year would simplify the system. It'd skew - or maybe rebalance - the market for sure, because the Prius would no longer have a £10 tax disc and older small cars currently on cheap tax would then cost £195 to tax. Overall I think we'd double the take from the 'first year rates' and raise more from all the rest while giving PH's guzzlers a tax break

26bn from fuel duty and 6bn from ved... duty's 58p a litre so you'd need to add 11p to fuel, ex vat, to scrap ved and remain revenue neutral. you keep saying fuel is too expensive but 13p for 10,000 miles at 25mpg is £234... unsuprisingly not dissimilar to your brainwave of a ved system. obviously there will be winners and losers but i'd rather pay as i go than pay first regardless of how much i drive... i don't buy the argument that fuel would be too expensive when you've got the money you havent spent on ved in your pocket to pay the difference... if you really want to fvck new car buyers just increase the vat rate on new cars, you dont need an army of fvckwits in swansea to administer that

[martin84]

My thinking is we've already got the army of fkwits and the first-year-rate mechanism so we may as well make them useful. I don't want to 'screw over' new car buyers, £320 to tax a £16k car is hardly attacking people in poverty. I reckon EU rules would stop us applying different rates of VAT to new cars.

Fuel would be too expensive under your plan because it's already too expensive. If we're going to cut the top rate of income tax to make us 'competative with other nations' then we should be looking to bring our diesel price down to French levels rather than increase it further.

Unless you're one of them who flip flops their principles depending on what suits.

[anonymous-user]

martin84 said:

My thinking is we've already got the army of fkwits and the first-year-rate mechanism so we may as well make them useful. I don't want to 'screw over' new car buyers, £320 to tax a £16k car is hardly attacking people in poverty. I reckon EU rules would stop us applying different rates of VAT to new cars.

Fuel would be too expensive under your plan because it's already too expensive. If we're going to cut the top rate of income tax to make us 'competative with other nations' then we should be looking to bring our diesel price down to French levels rather than increase it further.

Unless you're one of them who flip flops their principles depending on what suits.

why do we need to be "competative" with other nations in fuel prices? scrap ved, thats 7bn more in british pockets to pay for the increased prices. foreign trucks already fill up abroad, uk trucks already fill up if and when abroad, as far as i'm aware no one else actually goes abroad to fill up nor will they for 13p. conversely to use your odd income tax comparison would you object to raising income tax to abolish national insurance?

[Lotusevoraboy]

My guess is that a second, additional tax disc is on it's way, alongside, not instead of, the current one, being effectively a permit to use the motorways. Perfect solution for her Maj. and co. Raises money, costs only a bit of paper, the infrastructure to enforce it is already there...cameras etc. Also comes across well to those who don't use the motorways, frees up some motorway space as old ladies, students, the poor, etc stay off. It saves massively compared to the cost of introducing toll roads with booths etc. It's happening, I'm sure...all this talk of a complex and expensive two tier system is just to soften us up before they hit us with it. I only hope the cost of this permit is less than the amount we may save if my wife's £500 road tax on the Land Rover is somehow reduced on account of her not needing to use the motorway at all, ever. Doubt it though...that will probably stay the same.

[98elise]

SystemParanoia said:

i commute a 70 mile round trip.
its a serious piss take to be honest. fuel isnt cheap to do that distance.. road tax is already criminal as it stands.. insurance is currently crippling.

this will be the straw that breaks the camels back.

stop pissing around with the fking road tax ffs.

put road tax and basic 3rd party insurance onto fuel. sorted.

I'm always staggered that people thing insurance should go on petrol. That would mean low risk drivers would subsidise high risk drivers. It won't be any cheaper over all.

[martin84]

fbrs said:

why do we need to be "competative" with other nations in fuel prices?

It's not so much about being competative with other nations, it's more about being competative with ourselves. There is a point where high fuel prices damages your economy and makes any tax take somewhat pointless. We're beyond that point in the UK and most other nations are intelligent enough to work out fuel should be cheaper than it is here. When you've got the most expensive diesel in Europe - except for Norway - a sensible individual has to conclude it's too expensive. Practically everybody else on Earth has concluded it should be cheaper than we have it. You going to tell me they're all wrong?

The method of thinking we can tax our people much more than everywhere else and then believing we can easily tax all foreign visitors to force them to pay what we think is appropriate is the economics of Gordon Brown.

fbrs said:

scrap ved, thats 7bn more in british pockets to pay for the increased prices.

So it's not £7billion more in British pockets at all then is it? The Govt will just take it via another route. Net result: Back to square one but hey at least PH stops whining?

You have no sound economic basis for your argument, the reality is you just hate the DVLA.

fbrs said:

as far as i'm aware no one else actually goes abroad to fill up nor will they for 13p. conversely to use your odd income tax comparison would you object to raising income tax to abolish national insurance?

My income tax comparison has nothing to do with where anybody fills up in the World, I'm saying if you believe high income tax makes your economy uncompetative then why don't you also believe high fuel tax has the same effect? The principle is the same and I like people to remain consistent. You talk about UK trucks filling up abroad, yes they do that because it's cheaper, they specifically plan routes to run out of fuel in France, if fuel was cheaper here they'd switch it round within a day. Wouldn't you rather they fill up here more often even if the tax rate was lower?

When we talk about income tax - the 50p debate - or corperation tax - Starbucks debate - we always compare our rates to other countries and conclude 5% of something beats 0% of everything. The same applies here surely?

[Engineer1]

Another issue what happens when you live in an area where the trunk roads are also the main local road? or only viable route, how many rat runs through estates will be created? Try getting into a city centre without going on a main road, the problem is this will go the way of gas guzzler taxation and catch people who drive between towns on the A road.

[FiF]

Engineer1 said:

Another issue what happens when you live in an area where the trunk roads are also the main local road? or only viable route, how many rat runs through estates will be created? Try getting into a city centre without going on a main road, the problem is this will go the way of gas guzzler taxation and catch people who drive between towns on the A road.

Exactly!

The only viable road for us into Worcester is a main dualled A road, (albeit with 40 and 50 limits and more white paint hatching than in a B&Q wehouse) OR a tiny narrow country lane, lots of unsighted bends and junctions, floods in winter, does not get ploughed or gritted in winter, and when you get to the other end you STILL either have to join an A road or rat run on a crazy route through housing estates.

Even if we assume that the distinction really is Motorways and the trunk routes, see below, then we could possibly keep one car on "local" tax rate, but in the last year for various reasons even this vehicle has been up and down the M5 and even up M1 up as far as Sheffield. Not to make these trips would have been a serious inconvenience. Changing the rules like this would be electoral suicide for any party.

[FiF]

...and another thing.

Looking at the HA network map it would be impractical to cover all the entry and exit roads with cameras, so it woud require, as somebody already said, black boxes, satnav tracking on the Galileo GPS system.

Also what would happen if you were diverted by a road closure due to flood, collision, road works whatever.

[anonymous-user]

martin84 said:

fbrs said:

why do we need to be "competative" with other nations in fuel prices?

It's not so much about being competative with other nations, it's more about being competative with ourselves. There is a point where high fuel prices damages your economy and makes any tax take somewhat pointless...
The method of thinking we can tax our people much more than everywhere else and then believing we can easily tax all foreign visitors to force them to pay what we think is appropriate is the economics of Gordon Brown.

epic straw man nonsense, all i have advocated is revenue neutral where what you pay is based on what you use. sure we'd all love lower taxes, great.

martin84 said:

The Govt will just take it via another route. Net result: Back to square one but hey at least PH stops whining?

you're really struggling with the concept of revenue neutral arn't you?

martin84 said:

...if you believe high income tax makes your economy uncompetative then why don't you also believe high fuel tax has the same effect?

ffs i'm not talking about higher taxes, the only one who has done that is you with your 'how to get more money out of VED' brainwave. i'd love taxes to be lower, in the event they are not lets collect them more efficiently. but to answer your question corporates (and individuals to a lesser extent) can choose where they pay tax so there is genuine tax competition. 32.4 million british motorists can't choose, only a proportion of the 600,000 hgv's on our roads can and those that can already do so you're not going to lose their revenue in any event.

just too painful

[martin84]

My tax shakeup idea would be better received than making petrol more expensive, even if it did cost people more per year. People see the price of petrol on bright neon signs as they drive around, they don't see the price of a tax disc in the same way.

I don't like my idea either by the way, but that would be my proposal if I were tasked with raising more money from the VED system.

[anonymous-user]

martin84 said:

My tax shakeup idea would be better received than making petrol more expensive, even if it did cost people more per year. People see the price of petrol on bright neon signs as they drive around, they don't see the price of a tax disc in the same way.

I don't like my idea either by the way, but that would be my proposal if I were tasked with raising more money from the VED system.

Yes but why the fk should we be standing for another tax hike, any way up? That's the point.

Abolish VED, put the equivalent on fuel. Revenue neutral.

Decimate the numbers at DVLA and there's a spending cut that we would all appreciate.

[Happy82]

martin84 said:

Quite. Motorways, A roads, bridges etc were first built specifically to get people out of the towns and cities and to make journeys quicker and safer. That was the whole point.

Perfect opportunity for them to then charge you for entering built up areas once everyone is forced to abandon out of town roads. Government seem to enjoy creating problems that are resolved by further tax

[martin84]

REALIST123 said:

Yes but why the fk should we be standing for another tax hike, any way up? That's the point.

Abolish VED, put the equivalent on fuel. Revenue neutral.

People keep saying revenue neutral but that just proves your plan raises no extra money and saves the public no extra money. So you do have to wonder what's the point.

REALIST123 said:

Decimate the numbers at DVLA and there's a spending cut that we would all appreciate.

You seem more interested in destroying the DVLA than actually doing anything useful, like raising more revenue or putting money back in the pockets of the public. Ideally I'd rather scrap VED and cut fuel tax by at least 10p a litre because it would put billions of real money back into the economy.

I think at the very least my VED system beats the current one, I'm not pretending there's a link between co2 emissions and tax etc. Anybody here driving a Band M car would benefit from my plan.

[turbobloke]

martin84 said:

...cut fuel tax by at least 10p a litre because it would put billions of real money back into the economy...

Top idea, and that's a bigger cut than I can remember anyone suggesting on PH but memories can be faulty. When I suggested similar in the past as an extension of scrapping costly and nonsensical windymill subsidies to reduce domestic and commercial energy costs - within a growth strategy - it would have been going some at 10p. It would cut the cost of a lot of goods and services including food.

See Weds 25 July, 1p then a freeze would be 4p or more by the end of 2013 iirc.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...