Replacement for Fuel Duty?
Replacement for Fuel Duty?
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Discussion

FourGears

Original Poster:

369 posts

86 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
What will the replacement be?

For my 30 second Google the IFS estimate fuel duty raised circa £20 something billion a year pre covid.

Assuming take up of Electric cars continues revenues of fuel duty, vat on fuel and VED will decline.

Does congestion charges replace it as all towns and cities will eventually have one or does road pricing come in? Could the Government sell as an example the motorway network?

Silvanus

6,917 posts

54 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
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Some sort mileage charge, maybe on and off peak pricing. Makes sense whatever powers the car. Get rid of VED and tax on fuel and charge for how many miles you do. If you don't drive very far you don't pay much.

I'd imagine the bigger the footprint of the car or higher the CO2 output, higher rate charging. Something like a small electric city car used off peak would pay the least and a large SUV in rush hour would pay more.

Edited by Silvanus on Tuesday 13th September 16:00

911hope

3,793 posts

57 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
Difficult problem to solve, in terms of taxing the road users. Road pricing will require serious infrastructure to implement.

So could add a levy onto electricity prices above a domestic base level usage. This will make electric cars less advantageous, but the tax revenue must be replaced.

Fuel levy would need to remain on petrol/diesel.

donteatpeople

881 posts

305 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
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I know this gets framed as a new and catastrophic situation for the government but I'm not convinced it's either. As a percentage of national income fuel duty peaked at 2.2% in 2000, last year that was down to 1.3%. EVs will just help continue that long running trend.

The government could continue to do what they've done for the last 20 odd years and gradually get more tax from elsewhere as fuel duty declines.

Dave Hedgehog

16,366 posts

235 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
i can see them creating some basic zones, on the main m-ways, around major towns and cities, some strategic tolls and charging for using them during peak time

proven technology, pretty easy to setup and vastly easier than trying to fit 50 mill vehicles with pay per mile boxes


Olivergt

2,272 posts

112 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
Dave Hedgehog said:
i can see them creating some basic zones, on the main m-ways, around major towns and cities, some strategic tolls and charging for using them during peak time

proven technology, pretty easy to setup and vastly easier than trying to fit 50 mill vehicles with pay per mile boxes
So people with old ICE cars pay twice? Or are you suggesting that they will remove fuel duty as well?

freakybacon

586 posts

194 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
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Road pricing. Remember Blair tried to implement this, but the populace weren’t ready for it, and protested. Once we have all been coaxed into EVs, this will be a much easier sell. It will likely be an app on your phone, so you will be paying it wether you’re driving ICE or EV, so electric will be much cheaper to run.

survivalist

6,124 posts

221 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
Silvanus said:
Some sort mileage charge, maybe on and off peak pricing. Makes sense whatever powers the car. Get rid of VED and tax on fuel and charge for how many miles you do. If you don't drive very far you don't pay much.

I'd imagine the bigger the footprint of the car or higher the CO2 output, higher rate charging. Something like a small electric city car used off peak would pay the least and a large SUV in rush hour would pay more.

Edited by Silvanus on Tuesday 13th September 16:00
As someone who owns 2 cars that are early driven, but each incur a £600 VED charge I’d absolutely love this. Won’t happen though.

Sunday Drive

272 posts

51 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
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911hope said:
Difficult problem to solve, in terms of taxing the road users. Road pricing will require serious infrastructure to implement.
Will it? Insurance companies do it easily enough to monitor young drivers.

Puzzles

3,637 posts

142 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
freakybacon said:
Road pricing. Remember Blair tried to implement this, but the populace weren’t ready for it, and protested. Once we have all been coaxed into EVs, this will be a much easier sell. It will likely be an app on your phone, so you will be paying it wether you’re driving ICE or EV, so electric will be much cheaper to run.
I remember that too and it would have been my first thought. That said the prior poster might be on to something, with fiscal drag they might not need to!

Jamescrs

6,495 posts

96 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
quotequote all
Sunday Drive said:
Will it? Insurance companies do it easily enough to monitor young drivers.
They do but it's very easy to find many solutions to blocking the signals from black boxes etc, and realistically Police aren't going to stop every vehicle on the road to see if the driver is jamming their GPS tracker in someway. I also feel all the human rights lawyers would jump all over the idea of the government tracking every car's movements in the country via GPS, and I agree with the Lawyers on that one to be fair.

Article 8 Human Rights Act- Right to a private and family life.

People who have them in their car now for insurance do so voluntarily on the presumption they get cheaper insurance, forcing it on everyone would be a different matter.

Regards VED- Thats an easy one, they will simply change the rules so no vehicles are exempt and bring in a rate for EV's

TomJS

980 posts

227 months

Tuesday 13th September 2022
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I think boxes that track you everywhere are probably out as the population will object too much.

Possibly they could do more congestion charging, or tax depending on a number plate that allows certain days of use. Or even tax tyres very heavily (good arguments for that since tyres create a lot of air pollution and the more miles you do, the more tyres you go through).

carinaman

25,277 posts

203 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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Aren't Smart Motorways about road charging and the surveillance state?

If we go to a digital currency and implement a social credit scoring system could you lose social credit score points for a 400 mile round trip in your ICE powered vehicle but not lose those points if you use a state approved electric car?

A digital currecny could stop you buying parts for your 30 year old ICE car, or just deduct social credit scoring points from you for persisting to use an ICE powered vehicle and not the approved electric vehicle?

kambites

71,599 posts

252 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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How easy is clocking cars these days? If the answer is difficult, the simple solution seems to be to charge a mileage tax each year based on the mileage traveled. Works with existing vehicles and has the added bonus (from the point of view of revenue) of also charging people who drive their UK registered car abroad.

kalniel

258 posts

151 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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In the future I expect all cars will phone in their mileage. In the near term maybe they could use MOT reports, though sounds like they want to push them to two years and there's the new-car situation as well, so maybe it's ANPR and tolls.

Deerhound93

39 posts

58 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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As someone who owns 2 cars but does probably a total of 5k miles a year combined due to WFH, I'm all for price per mile.

Road2Ruin

6,532 posts

247 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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Tax revenue is tax revenue. The government don't care where they get it from, as long ad they get it. ICE cars will continue to be taxed as normal or possibly higher to encourage the move away from dirty engines. Electric cars are not likely to be taxed, again to encourage the purchase. So taxes in other areas are going to increase or new taxes brought in.
You will probably see an increase in VAT and National Insurance. After that I suspect they will target other fosile fuel devices like gas boilers or oil boilers and tax that heavier.

Baldchap

9,629 posts

123 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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Car chargers are now 'smart' and report usage. They'll tax this usage.

We still have a 'dumb' charger on three phase from when we had our Tesla. laugh

Road2Ruin

6,532 posts

247 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
quotequote all
Baldchap said:
Car chargers are now 'smart' and report usage. They'll tax this usage.

We still have a 'dumb' charger on three phase from when we had our Tesla. laugh
Mine doesn't report usage and is only 4 months old.

vikingaero

13,483 posts

200 months

Wednesday 14th September 2022
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kambites said:
How easy is clocking cars these days? If the answer is difficult, the simple solution seems to be to charge a mileage tax each year based on the mileage traveled. Works with existing vehicles and has the added bonus (from the point of view of revenue) of also charging people who drive their UK registered car abroad.
Most cars can have their "mileage corrected" with an OBD cable and a laptop. Yes there can be traces in the ECU of some cars.

New cars - fixed VED each year
Cars subject to MOT - one VED for low mileage (under 6k), one VED middle/average mileage for 6k to 12k, and a higher VED for 12k+, all policed via MOT mileage (no system is 100% secure).