It Had To Come!

[FROSTYBALLS]

Vehicle Excise Duty has not been used to directly fund roads maintenance since 1937. It just goes into the general taxation pot - so one cannot separate out what VED actually funds.

As regards adding the equivalent of VED onto fuel duty, an extract below from a 1999 Government consultation paper on changes to VED, shows that it isn't as simple as it first appears:

A question that is frequently asked is why not simply abolish VED and raise the equivalent from fuel duty. There are several reasons:
a. Even without VED, it would still be necessary to maintain a vehicle record and pay for a system for enforcing the requirement to register vehicles. It is doubtful whether any alternative system would be as effective;
b. VED is also an invaluable aid in ensuring compliance with MOT and insurance certification;
c. It ensures all motorists contribute to the fixed costs incurred in maintaining and policing the road network;
d VED plays a part in reducing congestion and parking problems by discouraging people from owning second cars;
e. There are also some costs of road use that are not captured adequately by road fuel duty. For example, the damage done by heavy goods vehicles depends on the weight they carry and how that weight is distributed. Lorry VED is designed to reflect this, at least in part.
f. To load the full burden of motoring taxes onto fuel duties would hit groups such as hauliers and bus operators. It would also disadvantage disabled drivers, who do not pay VED

[Mike169]

Hi Mike

Line f on your post is incorrect as it states disabled drivers do not pay VED. I am officially a disabled driver and hold a blue Badge but i have to pay for my VED. Disabled drivers that claim mobility assistance and get it at the higher/enhanced level do qualify for a free VED but i do not qualify for this financial assistance therefore i do not have a 'free' VED so perhaps the rules have changed since your article was originally written. Also i know several other Disabled drivers, ones i have spoken to at supermarkets etc that also pay. I think the best way to sum it up is if you are severly disabled then you get more benefits but if you are only 'just' disabled then you have to pay for your own VED.

Regards Mike.

[FROSTYBALLS]

The quote is taken directly from a consultation paper - the quote re disabled drivers may well have been correct when the paper was published (1999), but probably isn't accurate now.

However the reasoning behind not having VED put onto fuel in the consultation paper is still valid today.

[Mike169]

Hi Mike

That explains it as the paper when published is now 16 years old. The big thing is no matter how the government charge the tax they want to aquire some people will always be better off than others and some like me would benefit from the VED being on the fuel but i take your point completely that others would pay heavily if this was the case. I personally used to drive a 44 ton Scania artic truck and the gallons of fuel i used daily was a lot to say the least....yes i had a company fuel card but of course untimately the company paid.

Regards Mike.

[kithmo]

Yes Keith i still have to pay road tax. A small number of Blue Badge holders don't have to pay and generally these are people that claim PIP benefit and whom are paid at the enhanced mobility rate. To get this benefit you have to be accessed by a 'special' doctor who makes a decision about your personal condition, hence why i feel the tax should be in with the fuel so those that use the roads the most pay for it's repairs at a more proportionate rate.The government already collects it's 'cut' from when we buy a litre of fuel so an admin change would be negligable where as it costs the goverment money to collect the RFL and this expense could be scrapped saving the government money. As we all know the government is making cut backs to reduce out national dep't, to me this is an obvious thing to change if they want an easy money saving unnessary expense.

Mike.

Apologies Mike, I assumed that if you were disabled enough to obtain a Blue Badge then you were on the High rate benefit, I didn't realise they gave them to less disabled people.

[Mike169]

Hi Keith.

No need to apologise mate, the rules are changed by the government on an ongoing basis and basically if they can save a few bob by tweaking the system then they just do so. I was not born disabled but life has taken it's toll.

My name, Metal Mickey, is a tonge in cheek nickname as i set off alarms as i go through metal detectors lol.

All the best, Mike.

[smalltalker]

"Road" tax (Car tax really) and fuel tax should be scrapped, both. Then roads should be all privatised, and funded by tolls paid by its users. Implement some kind of national standard for toll charging, with a dongle in the windscreen, and voila!

Car tax doesn't work to fund roads, as it's not proportional to the road usage. Fuel tax is also not adequate, as more efficient cars pay less of it, with electric cars paying nothing, but they still use the roads. And worse of all, funding roads with general taxation is extremely immoral and economically inefficient as it basically subsidises heavy road users at the expense of people who never drive or drive very little.

Private roads funded by tolls is the best system, with a relaxing planning system so that new roads can be constructed by the private sector.

[FROSTYBALLS]

"Road" tax (Car tax really) and fuel tax should be scrapped, both. Then roads should be all privatised, and funded by tolls paid by its users. Implement some kind of national standard for toll charging, with a dongle in the windscreen, and voila!

Car tax doesn't work to fund roads, as it's not proportional to the road usage..

In fact it is Vehicle Excise Duty - neither Road Tax or Car Tax. As I said in a previous post, road maintenance costs have not been funded by this tax/duty since 1937.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I'm all for tolls too. I never go anywhere near motorways unless I can help it and if I had to pay to use them I certainly wouldn't. Bring it on.

[Heidfirst]

so how are you going to pay for the construction/maintenance of the roads that you do use?

VED & fuel tax bring in the government a wad of cash (far more than is spent on roads) that is used for general funding i.e. pensions, health etc. etc.

[fastbob72]

Must confess that road tax isn't something I've ever really been bothered about when changing car.

What is more important to me is whether the car provides what we want from a car - for example as my partner is a massage therapist, for her car, a massage table must fit in the boot, with or without the seats folded forwards, and the tailgate opening must be wide/low enough to accommodate the table.

Her current i20 (which fits the above requirement) was one of those which, in terms of road tax, was nil for the first year, and has been £30 in subsequent years - but for us that's a side benefit.

I have to admit feeling exactly the same way, whilr my Avensis spent most of last summer n this winter off the road I bought a cheap. Clio turbo diesel to run around in. Now that was £30 a year to tax which I hadn't realised at the time but was a nice bonus i have to admit but it didn't stop me wanting to get my full fat £200 odd a yeat Avensis back on the road I'd sooner pay the extra to have a car I enjoy driving and owning rather than save the money but run around in something that was slow, boring and totally unrewarding to drive.

I rarely do take tax, insurance and up until the last few years fuel consumption into. account when buying a car, it's always been do I like it, do I want one of these. Cars have always been a much more than about transport for me. I remember being 20 back in 1992 and paying £200 a year insurance for a group 5 2.0.Cortina then without the slightest bit of research or thought going and buying an XR3i juat as they changed from 6 insurance groups up to 20 and I'd found myself with a group 15 almost uninsureable car on my hands.... cost me £750 3rd party and that was the very best I could get [emoji27] [emoji27] [emoji27]

[FROSTYBALLS]

Two examples of toll exercises which didn't work particularly well, were the Skye Bridge and the M6 Toll Road.

Skye Bridge - built in 1995 at a cost of approx £25 million, with the Scottish Office chipping in another £15.5 million for road improvements on the island and mainland. Over the 10 years of operation, maintenance costs approx £3.5 million and tolls taken £33.5 million. The tolls were not a popular option for locals - the bridge was bought back off the Skye Bridge Company in 2005 for £27 million, and tolls abolished. So by my reckoning by 2005, it cost the taxpayer £42.5 million, and the Skye Bridge company came out of it with £32 million profit - paid for in tolls from motorists.

M6 Toll Road (Birmingham Northern Relief Road) - The successful bidder had to build and operate the toll road, and the aim was to alleviate congestion through Birmingham and the Black Country. Opened in 2004. The road operator has a contract to operate the road, and levy tolls (which it determines) for a period of 50 years - and then the road is handed back to Government. In the first year traffic was 66% of that intended, and congestion on the M6 had a small reduction. Traffic on the M6 Toll Road has continued to fall - eg. to around 39,000 vehicles in 2009. Government is now using the hard shoulder of the M6 in the stretch covered by the M6 Toll Road, to cope with traffic at peak times.

[smalltalker]

Of course tolls are not popular with locals. It's much better for them to have everybody else pay for their road. Tolls are the only moral and economically sound way of funding roads. The m6 case is another example of bad implementation. Between paying a toll and using a "free" taxpayer funded road, the choice is clear :use the free one. For tolls to work they need to be widely deployed for all roads, no exceptions. Local roads could be owned by residents with free circulation for them. The rest, paid by is users.

[Heidfirst]

the cost of implementing & operating a nationwide tolling system on all roads would be horrendous not to mention that it would take decades in this country. I can't think of 1 country that is 100% toll roads.

[Mike169]

The Dartford Bridge/Tunnel acts much like the Congestion charge in London in as much that you register online and buy credits if you like and each time you drive through/across it the camera's note your reg no. and deducts it from your credit. There are other ways of paying of course but all the booths have now gone as no longer sufferes from severe hold ups. When it was built we were told once the building costs were recovered then to use it would be free but it earns so much money they back tracked and it generates £millions for the purse each year. Locals get a discount as long as they live within certain postcodes. The fines for not paying either upfront or up to midnight on the day are very expensive. Of couse if someone has 'cloned' a car then the genuine keeper where the car is registered gets all the fines which of course causes headaches.

Regards Mike.

[cbcdesign]

I don't see how road tolls are any better than my proposal, in fact they are a lot worse in my opinion because It would still hit haulage companies and bus companies hard and taxi drivers could find themselves passing toll recognition systems several times in one day on the same stretch of road.

A charge based on Millage and emissions is the only fair way and that means putting it on fuel. Sure there are difficulties that need to be worked out but its rare that good comes easy.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

A charge based on Millage and emissions is the only fair way and that means putting it on fuel.

Not at all, emissions are not fuel use based, my Classic Panda will beat the MPG of most modern vehicles of the same size and fuel type, but being pre euro anything and running on a carb it probably emits more than something that returns only a fifth of its economy thats euro 6 compliant. Thats where the RFL system comes in regarding emissions, and the fuel is already taxed heavily for high users to be paying more. So based on the above the current system is the right one.

[cbcdesign]

Your classic panda emits around 109 grams per km and has a rating of 67 MPG. The 2012 version has ratings of 104G/KM and 72MPG. A car with more performance that emits twice the emissions with half the MPG owned by somebody who drives half the yearly millage you do emits the same co2 but gets clobbered!

Its not about how big or small a vehicle is, its about emissions and MPG and the current system allows people who drive little cars to pollute more than larger car owners without paying for it.

[FROSTYBALLS]

As I said previously, no tax is fair for everyone, and for people who say one method is fair, there will be someone else who says otherwise.

Replacing VED with extra duty on fuel isn't new, and in fact was discounted in a Government consultation in 1999, especially as regards to the fact that the present system enables Government to police requirements like MOT's, insurance, etc.

The current system works for Government as regards a source of revenue and policing the motorist.