Car Road Tax

[Malc1]

1 hour ago, Boomer54 said:

Could it BE anymore convoluted?

Probably  ..........  you're not trying hard enough to convince everyone that someome somewhere covers the cost of our roads ......... and wot about the road sweepers themselves that keep the roads pristine and nice places to be 🥰

Malc

[Jgtcracer]

2 hours ago, Boomer54 said:

What chance does the road tax payer really have of understanding what they get for paying road tax? Read the following and tell me you can make a tangible connection between what you pay and what you get.

"The Department for Transport (DfT) is responsible for funding local road renewals and upgrades, while the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government provides revenue support to local highways authorities. Local road maintenance expenditure can also be funded by local governments own revenues¹². State and local governments provide the bulk of the funding for repairing and maintaining highways and surface transportation in general³. Nearly as much of the cost of building and maintaining highways now comes from general taxes such as income and sales taxes as comes from gasoline taxes or other “user fees” on drivers"

Could it BE anymore convoluted?

Interesting, though no mention of how road tax specifically is used.  I’ll have to do some googling.

https://www.newcarsonline.co.uk/blog/what-is-road-tax-used-for/#:~:text=Understanding Vehicle Tax&text=So%2C what does VED really,council tax and corporation tax.

 Motorways and major A-roads seem fine, though I’m only ever exposed to the A1.  It’s the local authority that seems to be lacking.  I can only imagine this is because there’s no money or it’s being diverted to more ‘important’ projects.

 As an operations guy, I’d love to have at crack at it, my local council doesn’t seem to be managing well at all….

[Boomer54]

8 minutes ago, Jgtcracer said:

Interesting, though no mention of how road tax specifically is used.  I’ll have to do some googling.

https://www.newcarsonline.co.uk/blog/what-is-road-tax-used-for/#:~:text=Understanding Vehicle Tax&text=So%2C what does VED really,council tax and corporation tax.

 Motorways and major A-roads seem fine, though I’m only ever exposed to the A1.  It’s the local authority that seems to be lacking.  I can only imagine this is because there’s no money or it’s being diverted to more ‘important’ projects.

 As an operations guy, I’d love to have at crack at it, my local council doesn’t seem to be managing well at all….

Digging into this in even a superficial way suggests the major road network is centrally funded. However, it is still obvious this funding is derived from multiple sources. Hence, it is anything, but clear how much of our road tax is actually used for this purpose. By contrasts it appears local roads come under the responsibility of local councils. That is where it stops being clear, because whilst your council tax statement tells you what % of your tax goes towards road maintenance it appears there is also a contribution made to the council by govt. Again, it is not clear what tax funds that contribution. 

The above does however probably explain why major roads tend to be maintained better than local roads.

In conclusion, funding is bizarre in it's complexity. There is no clear explanation how our road tax payments connect to the purpose we make them for. Exactly why council tax payments contribute to road maintenance at all could only be explained by an Alien from the planet Lunacy.

[Malc1]

Alien from the planet Lunacy 🤔  ……. APL …….. possibly covers much and most of who’s in charge of Govt ……. used to be known as a Civil Servant but I’m reading Sue Gray is now in charge of all Govt by courtesy of devolvement / abdication by Sir Jeer Harmer …….. 

…… look guys and gals, it really doesn’t matter in the slightest wot we mere pleb mortals think anymore …….. we must simply knuckle down and enjoy the financial rollercoaster ride that’s going to be funded by all us dear old motorists …….. THEY just don’t need to even think to justify the tax-take …….. we’re fair or indeed unfair game ……

and for Stephen especially …… don’t know why but I’m thinking of our revered latter day  Two Jags Prescott ……. but you’ve only got the one 🤔……. and especially Convertible Car owners will be given an “ open to sunshine “  car tax next …….. you couldn’t make it up BUT you know you now can ……. ANYTHING we can dream up to increase car ownership taxation WILL Be fair game ……, the APLs are now in charge 🥳 🤣 😂 🥵🥵🥵

Malc

 

[Malc1]

I rather like an earlier comment someone made …… can’t remember who tho’ …… 

Rachel Reeves ….. Queen of Thieves  👍

Malc 

[J Henderson]

6 hours ago, Jgtcracer said:

Seems simple to me.  If we decide that car tax stays, everyone pays it…. As far as I’m concerned it comes down to what road tax is supposed to do.

 I’d understand if my car somehow caused a bigger burden on the road network and supporting infrastructure but it doesn’t.  I feel road tax should ring fenced and used for maintenance and capital investment, not as a tool to manipulate the public’s behaviour and encourage policies such as electric cars.  I already pay a premium in fuel duty for driving a ‘polluting’ car, why should I get punished twice.  

As said above, I wouldn’t mind if we had quality roads but they are shocking!  I live on the England/Scotland border and it’s terrible everywhere I go…I’d be interested to see financial accounts to understand where the money goes actually.  Bet it goes into flowers on roundabouts!

 Just charge everyone a reasonable, fair and equal amount per year, to use the roads with no one getting off because their car is electric.  Notice I said everyone, that includes £10 a year for a bicycle/horse/scooter etc.

Agreed. The current system seems unfair when the VED for a 2500kg SUV with horrific fuel economy, or a £400K supercar, is the same cost for a family car with an efficient 60MPG engine. That's a loophole that needs to be closed.

And EVs should definitely be taxed, yes. They might not produce any tailpipe emissions, but they're a nuisance in other areas. Even if we ignore the resources required to build an EV, and the dubious practices involved in gaining said resources, they've been proven to throw huge amounts of rubber particles into the environment, which are just as harmful as exhaust gases.

As well as burning through tyres, they're tearing the roads apart with their massive weight and huge amounts of torque. 

New cars should probably be taxed according to kerb weight as well as emissions going forward, both EVs and fuel-powered cars, since modern cars are so big and heavy now. The latest BMW M5 weighs in at 2.5 tonnes for crying out loud. 

Perhaps set a threshold somewhere around 1200kg, where there would be zero influence towards VED, but heavier cars would be punished on a sliding scale, just like CO2 emissions currently are. This would let smaller cars go relatively unpunished.

[Malc1]

I can’t imagine that the “ new” Dacia EV that they advertise on tv at sub £15k is a very big weighty car …… it looks tiny and might get away with a tiny “ Road tax “  🥵

Malc 

[Boomer54]

56 minutes ago, J Henderson said:

Agreed. The current system seems unfair when the VED for a 2500kg SUV with horrific fuel economy, or a £400K supercar, is the same cost for a family car with an efficient 60MPG engine. That's a loophole that needs to be closed.

And EVs should definitely be taxed, yes. They might not produce any tailpipe emissions, but they're a nuisance in other areas. Even if we ignore the resources required to build an EV, and the dubious practices involved in gaining said resources, they've been proven to throw huge amounts of rubber particles into the environment, which are just as harmful as exhaust gases.

As well as burning through tyres, they're tearing the roads apart with their massive weight and huge amounts of torque. 

New cars should probably be taxed according to kerb weight as well as emissions going forward, both EVs and fuel-powered cars, since modern cars are so big and heavy now. The latest BMW M5 weighs in at 2.5 tonnes for crying out loud. 

Perhaps set a threshold somewhere around 1200kg, where there would be zero influence towards VED, but heavier cars would be punished on a sliding scale, just like CO2 emissions currently are. This would let smaller cars go relatively unpunished.

Or if anyone is concerned about the environment then find a way to tax for that. The fact remains that wear and tear on roads in general is a function of the traffic they bear. So, you drive more miles then in general you cause more and wear. Obvious, exclusion issue to the former statement is the weight of the vehicle, but even that could only be realistically differentiated between cars in general and HGV.  Going further than that seems difficult to justify.

What I am suggesting is logical if you think road tax and road maintenance costs should be connected. Unfortunately, for reasons best known to them politicians would rather ignore behavioural psychology in favour of theirown mindless ideology.

[Linas.P]

On 8/16/2024 at 10:52 AM, Boomer54 said:

With a new govt and a budget on the Autumn horizon I am reading more and more about a potential review of how we pay road tax. The argument seems to be around the substantial hole in revenue that will follow from the intended transition to EV. Clearly there are at least a couple of alternative ways of rectifying that situation. You could continue to in effect subsidise EV road tax just by increasing road tax on non EV vehicles. You could of course balance the situation out by reducing that subsidy gradually increasing the revenue from EV vehicles. This is really very much about the numbers involved and how quickly you want to fill the hole in your revenue. The alternative that intrigues me the most and appeals the most is of course a complete change over to pay per mile road tax. This removes any and all favouritism and basically relates what you use to what you pay and I certainly like the thought of that. One article today suggests the following; "as one think tank suggests a figure of 6p per mile plus VAT to replace fuel duty losses.".

Now if that number actually achieved govt needs to fill it's revenue hole then that would be quite appealing to low mileage users. Example, on 3,000 miles PA you would be paying £225 inc vat ! I mean you can can just add me to the list looking for that 3rd car (sic). Joking aside that would be a huge reduction for us V8 low mileage drivers. If for no other reason it cannot happen. I am just not that lucky !!

Views/opinions invited.

 

The issue with tax per mile is the management and enforcement of the charge... this inevitably leads to having trackers in the cars and recording where one was at one point, then also there is issue of privacy, automatic fines for speeding, old government even contemplated charging drivers more if they get stuck in traffic at certain times (basically charging us more for government own fault of not providing required infrastructure). 

How about this radical idea - let's just include tax into fuel, the more you drive, the more you pay, and the thirstier car you have, likely the more you pollute and therefore you pay more... seems like simple to administer and fair system, that does not require trackers.... OHHHH WAIT... we already tax the fuel twice! And that system is already in place, meaning road tax is just tax of the tax... of the tax... of the tax.

I know I am idealist and this will never become reality, but if I were ever in position to come to government, then in my manifesto I would put following - scrapping of VED, scrapping of fuel duty and replacing all stupid cars taxes into one simple "road fund" tax which would be let's say 25%, maybe 30% of the fuel cost. It would still require some finagling with BEVs and PHEVs, perhaps having some sort of meter in the car itself to count how much electricity was put into it, to charge "road fund" tax accordingly. The positive part of it - it could be offline, it does not require tracker. On top of that this would save literally £100s of millions in cost of administration and enforcement. Stupid stuff like clamping cars without VED, sending reminder letter, administering payment and refund system and all this crap, all the taxes would be paid at the point of sale of fuel, or in case of BEVs, perhaps checked once a year during MOT. Needless to say I would also ring fence "road fund" and the money from road fund could only be spent on improving the roads.

[Spock66]

5 minutes ago, Boomer54 said:

What I am suggesting is logical if you think road tax and road maintenance costs should be connected.

Actually Road Tax was abolished in 1937 and replaced with Vehicle Excise Duty, it's just another tax that goes into Government treasury funds.

[Linas.P]

1 minute ago, Spock66 said:

Actually Road Tax was abolished in 1937 and replaced with Vehicle Excise Duty, it's just another tax that goes into Government treasury funds.

VED is still de-facto road tax, the name does not matter... we can call it "bullshaite tax for wheeled machines", but we need to look at what it does - can you drive on the public road without paying VED? No... you can't? What do you need to drive on public road? You need to pay VED? So you paying VED to use roads right? Therefore, by definition it is THE "road tax". Be it the third road tax in the country, absolutelly unfair and unnecessary money grab, but it is still part of road tax. Also fuel duty and even VAT on fuel are road taxes, because you can't drive car on the road without paying them... and also there is no other use for diesel, nor petrol... and although now slightly restricted in use, there used to be "red" diesel specifically for use "off-road" without duty (it taxed differently but basically it becomes 11ppl instead of 59ppl), just proving that one only needs to pay it on road, hence it is also de facto type of road tax.

In short - don't get confused with stupid names of taxes, no - road tax was not abolished, simply renamed.

My suggested "road fund charge", would also be de facto road tax, it just sounds better this way. 

Also just to be clear - I am absolutelly happy to pay road tax, I think it is needed and if it is fairly calculated then it is fair, but this tax MUST only ever go to the roads maintenance and improvements, it should not be abused and government should not profiteer from such specific tax for general taxation. For general taxation we already pay income tax, VAT, CGT etc. Those are general taxes. Road tax is for the roads only. 

[J Henderson]

33 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

I can’t imagine that the “ new” Dacia EV that they advertise on tv at sub £15k is a very big weighty car …… it looks tiny and might get away with a tiny “ Road tax “  🥵

Malc 

Apparently the most basic model (44bhp) only weighs 984kg. It even comes with steel wheels, which are usually heavier than alloys. 😮

[Malc1]

Then everyone buying an EV should be compelled to buy such as the Dacia EV  🤩

that might help preserve the state of our roads 🤞

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, Malc1 said:

Then everyone buying an EV should be compelled to buy such as the Dacia EV  🤩

that might help preserve the state of our roads 🤞

Just being light and basic is far from the criteria people have for the car, the same argument can be made about any car - everyone buying Lexus then should be compelled to buy Lexus CT, because that is most basic and lightest Lexus. Nobody should have LS400.

That said I am not against small and light BEVs, they are most beneficial in the city, the small Battery breaks-even on emissions the quickest, so perhaps people should be "discouraged" from buying monster BEVs with batteries that weight 2 tons, and "encouraged" rather than "compelled" to buy smaller BEVs with smaller batteries... which arguably is already the case because now any BEV over £40k (if memory serves) get's taxed a "luxury tax".

In short I am nit-picking a little bit here, I particularly don't like word "compelled" in any context. Small and short range BEVs are good and the right type of BEVs, but that does not mean people should be compelled to buy anything, especially not something from Dacia. For example Honda E is great little car, but here we quickly run into another problem - short range BEVs do not work in UK, because people in the cities have nowhere to charge them and they only work in the cities. Typical UK BEV buyer is somebody who lives in large house outside of the city, but short range BEVs do not work for such buyer. However, also one should not be in illusion that they "helping environment" when driving monstrous Tesla Model X with huge dirty Battery. Same as there is "guzzler tax" of engines with large emissions (£715 if I am not mistaken), then same should apply to any BEV with Battery over 100Kwh - Battery size of BEV is equivalent to engine displacement and co2/km on ICE and it should be taxed accordingly. 

[Malc1]

Oh my. Just said in jest my friend …….. lighten up eh 😄

Malc 

[Linas.P]

39 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

Oh my. Just said in jest my friend …….. lighten up eh 😄

Malc 

Who said I am am overly serious about it?? I even said I am kind of nit picking, because I don't like word compelled, mostly because when it comes to government policy it always end-up meaning "we will be forced" and it will be "compelling" offer we can't decline. 

However, when we are talking about road taxation and government policy overall, then I am just pointing out that small and light BEVs are not compatible with infrastructure and consumer needs, thus it would be wrong to have policy compelling anything. Considering we have left leaving government now... compelling to have any sort of private transport is unlikely either way.   

9 hours ago, Boomer54 said:

Digging into this in even a superficial way suggests the major road network is centrally funded. However, it is still obvious this funding is derived from multiple sources. Hence, it is anything, but clear how much of our road tax is actually used for this purpose. By contrasts it appears local roads come under the responsibility of local councils. That is where it stops being clear, because whilst your council tax statement tells you what % of your tax goes towards road maintenance it appears there is also a contribution made to the council by govt. Again, it is not clear what tax funds that contribution. 

The above does however probably explain why major roads tend to be maintained better than local roads.

In conclusion, funding is bizarre in it's complexity. There is no clear explanation how our road tax payments connect to the purpose we make them for. Exactly why council tax payments contribute to road maintenance at all could only be explained by an Alien from the planet Lunacy.

I am going to oversimplify here, but generally speaking the revenues to spending ratio is ~4:1. That is government raises ~£40 billion a year from road taxes (VED and fuel duty) and spends about £10 billions. This has been the case since 70s, so basically 75% of taxes raised directly from roads, not counting VAT on cars themselves, fuel VAT and millions of works that motoring creates and supports goes to general taxation and has nothing to do with the roads.

The split between central and local government is kind of not important. Local government mostly just cleans the roads and maintains the roadside, anything that they do to the actual road they tend to bill back to central government, so again from ~£40bn raised by central government, this still comes from that £10bn. And then we don't need to confuse the matters with council tax, because very little of that (likely none) goes to basically resurfacing of the roads or any significant infrastructure improvements... although "dropped kerb" would be the thing council covers. Also things like painting the lines... but at the same time they often operate borderline criminal bus lane and parking schemes.

Now it doesn't seems like I simplified it much, but my point is - ignore what council does, it is basically immaterial for our experience on the road, pot holes, or major bottle necks, lack of capacity etc. this will all stem from central government and aforementioned ~4:1 ratio.

That said - £10 billion seems like decent chunk of money, which should go long way to make British roads probably one of the best in Europe. For example France spends similar amount ~10 billion Euros for last couple of years and little bit more throughout last few decades (averaging like 17 billion), but obviously France is much larger country with much more roads (literally double the length of paved roads).

So why our roads so shaite compared to even France? Well... short answer - corruption. You see - £10 billion a years that are spent "on the roads"... isn't at all spent on the roads. Throughout the last government it was fairly normal to spend £2-4 billion a year for privately owned public transport companies subsidies (like Arriva, takes £2 bn subsidies, yet makes £600 million profit and pays dividends... how is that not corruption?!), also remaining £6 billion are not necessarily spent on "improvements", at least half of it are spend on useless things like converting live lanes to bus lanes, bike lanes, repairing bus stops, installing speed cameras and so on, arguably all the things that make roads worse. Including all sorts of ridiculous projects over the years, like "bat bridges", fake round abouts and sorts of useless traffic calming measures etc. So realistically where franc spends about 17 Euro per mile of road per year for improvements and maintenance, UK spends as little as £4 per mile of the road per year. That is before even discussing that infrastructure tends to have it's "minimum maintenance cost" and when it is not maintained to that standard the maintenance becomes more and more expensive to just keep it there... and after 40-50 years of negligence infrastructure in UK is just crumbling and £10 billion would be barely enough to patch the cracks, and another £10bn would be needed for making necessary improvements to bring roads up-to date from their current 60s standards (UK roads were designed to meet the needs of 60s and even then half of needed roads were scrapped and never delivered, like "London ring roads project"). 

[Malc1]

Has anyone put forward a realistic price / budget for pothole remediation ?

 
Malc 

[Scotlex]

We should all sell our high tax cars and buy a £0 tax or £20 tax car.

I briefly had a £20 tax car. I always thought it was hardly worth the effort of paying £20 😅

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, Malc1 said:

Has anyone put forward a realistic price / budget for pothole remediation ?

By now it would be huge bill, because roads were derelict for half a century... It is very hard to estimate total cost, but for UK as a country to stay on top of it's road infrastructure and to do minor, but important improvements, I would think something like £15 billion a year is realistic. But the money MUST be spend on the actual road, not on stupid tertiary priorities, or vanity projects. Honestly, it is painful to see when speed bumps are being installed... I do understand why they are being installed, but c'mon priorities first, perhaps we can have speedbumps once all the streets are free of put holes first?! Why even bother with speedbumps, leave the potholes in place to begin with!

Good news... motorists already pays £40+ billion a year, so it is not lack of funds collected, the problem is that they are being redirected to the rest of the crumbling system, wasted in the inefficient system etc. So at least UK isn't poor country, because there are countries that are genuinely poor and they don't have the money in the first place... we have the money, we just wasting it. I know this sound communist, but I think national, publicly owned road maintenance agency should be created, I am not saying that we should nationalise all the private road maintenance companies, or that we should not use their services ever (some of them are experts in particular things that would not be viable to nationalise), but day in day out resurfacing and maintenance should be done by public company. The simplest possible way to justify it - let's say resurfacing a stretch of motorway costs £100 million, just materials and labour, if this is done by the state company, that is what tax payer pays... if it is done by private company that has shareholders, then it has to make profit, generally speaking 30% is minimum viable profit margin for most companies... so now this same stretch of the road costs £130 millions... that is before cost overruns and before some corrupt official signs of extra £100 million for works that perhaps were not even needed. Basically, publicly owned company would mean that same money goes further. Perhaps not suitable for very complex projects like bridges, or tunnels... but for simple resurfacing of existing road, it should be plentiful. That is what National Highways should do, currently they only "manage the roads", meaning they inspect for works needed and pay private company to do it. What I am saying they should own both equipment and have their own workforce... also all roads should be managed this way, not only the key motorways.

[Malc1]

State ownership of road making and repairs would be interesting …….. save on Prison spaces ……. Send em all outside to work on “ street gangs “ , road making and repairs and living on-site 24/7 …….. we could invest in a tent making business as the accommodation blocks all over the country …….. prisoners would learn new useful skills and save the Exchequer a fortune and stop all those do gooders whingeing about prison overcrowding ……. and they get 24/7 fresh air  👍 

Car taxes could then be abolished at a stroke 🤔

Malc 

[Andy B]

On 8/16/2024 at 11:46 AM, Malc1 said:

Govt doesn’t need to worry about “ clocking “ or changing the speedo ………. I’m sure it’s all clearly mileage covered observed by some elektrinic wizadry at the  car, captured by Central Govt ……. with newer cars 

Malc 

With all the current (and historic) issues that Lexus owners are experiencing with the Lexus Link+ app not recording multiple journeys, let's hope that the Government commissions Lexus' IT department to capture the miles driven by every car. That way we'd probably be paying only half of what we should be. Far easier than "clocking". 😀

[Malc1]

Andy hi, With modern high tech cars I don’t believe for one moment that the Govt advanced IT tech and systems has any need to rely on the car manufacturers own systems to be able to collect this data at some central, maybe even global “  Govt “  HQ somewhere …….. probably in the ether and logged in some space station bank …….. every time you turn your car “ on “ it’s being “ read “ centrally and it ain’t necessarily at Lexus I’ll warrant  🤣

I think we can rest assured that Big Brother is aware !

Malc 

[dutchie01]

Over here in Holland there has been talk of pay per km or roadpricing for at least 10 years. The idea is to provide every car a "black box"that registers the number of km and thats what you pay. Another way is automatically scanning the cars by licenceplate or transponder when it passes a scanning station. That of course will cover the entire country! Time and again it failed and stayed where it started, a discussion. Privacy regulation will not allow it and maybe even more important, the political party that will push it through will find itself out of government for decades. Political suicide. So we stay with the current roadtax connected to the licenceplate and owner has to pay. My Volvo XC60 T6 is costing me 100 euro per month. If it would have been a diesel it is euro 278. PER MONTH. And here it comes, if is is a BEV it is zero. No roadtax.

[Linas.P]

18 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

Over here in Holland there has been talk of pay per km or roadpricing for at least 10 years. The idea is to provide every car a "black box"that registers the number of km and thats what you pay. Another way is automatically scanning the cars by licenceplate or transponder when it passes a scanning station. That of course will cover the entire country! Time and again it failed and stayed where it started, a discussion. Privacy regulation will not allow it and maybe even more important, the political party that will push it through will find itself out of government for decades. Political suicide. So we stay with the current roadtax connected to the licenceplate and owner has to pay. My Volvo XC60 T6 is costing me 100 euro per month. If it would have been a diesel it is euro 278. PER MONTH. And here it comes, if is is a BEV it is zero. No roadtax.

But you do already have "pay per mile road" tax when buying fuel... don't you? 

[Scotlex]

5 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

But you do already have "pay per mile road" tax when buying fuel... don't you? 

Very true