Car Road Tax

[dutchie01]

37 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

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

Oh yes, about 80 cents per litre and on top of that 21% vat. And in spite of roadtax you have to pay to park your car somewhere in town or village. And dont mention the co2 tax plus vat if you buy your car. And like mentioned in this tread all this tax creates a mountain of money to spend! Hooray! Free money. Throw it at a problem and if it does not work the politicians will already be in a different position so who cares? Its not only in the uk but also here. Spend billions on a high speed railtrack for 350kmh travel and then buy trains with a vmax of 220. And nobody responsible. Try doing that in a company! It makes me madmadmad

[Boomer54]

52 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

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

Only like I have a crumb rather than the whole cake. "pay per miie" in the sense you are using it there is a small part of 'tax' paid per mile' and an even smaller part of the overall cost summed by the term "pay per mile" that incorporates the element that is tax per mile.

I did like your earlier comment about just making that whole issue of 'road tax' inclusive into the cost of fuel. I mean that cuts right through a whole wagonload of nonsensicial bull.st nevermind eradicating a lot of bureacratic cost. Irony is that kind of effective policy initiative in a commercial business would get you fast tracked to senior management. In the public sector it will get buried so deep it will never see the light of day.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Boomer54 said:

Only like I have a crumb rather than the whole cake. "pay per miie" in the sense you are using it there is a small part of 'tax' paid per mile' and an even smaller part of the overall cost summed by the term "pay per mile" tha incorporates the element that is tax per mile.

Not sure what you meant here...

The tax on fuel is in effect tax per mile, at the point of sale. Car needs fuel to go any distance, so if there is tax on fuel, then there is tax on the distance travelled. Do we agree on that? No?

Furthermore this tax is quite conveniently also covers pollution, because the cars that uses more fuel, pollutes more, so automatically ends-up being taxed higher. So as far as road transport - this is the only tax that we ever needed. There is little caveat with electricity, because one can charge at home and that some extra system is require to capture that, but importantly it does not need privacy spoiling, always on trackers.

What you mean by small part? Fuel is 80% pure tax, using fuel means a lot of taxation raised, in fact 2/3 of all road taxes raised in UK is the fuel component, only 1/3 is the VED (this is mostly because of how government has discounted VED for a lot of vehicles... even say IS300h pay only £30).

Then onto next point... in principle why do we have taxes? Why they need to be paid? What is justification for giving money to government? We pay NI why? Because we have NHS? So NI is for covering NHS expenses? The answer I am leading to - taxes are paid to cover government expenses in providing social services. There are more general taxes that cover more general expenses, VAT, income tax, CGT, should be made as such that they cover expenses of general services such as education, defence etc. In fact "road tax" isn't really needed as a separate tax, it could be under same umbrella of general services, because it is not only the drivers that needs road... everyone needs roads, police, ambulances, postal services etc. So as far as I am concerned road tax is by default punitive and unfair, it is like a penalty for doing something bad. So this needs to be understood - what existence of the road tax means? It means our government thinks that driving private car is an offence in some way, it is undesirable, hence it needs to be punished. Another example - duty on alcohol and cigarettes, use of them it is considered undesirable, hence it is taxed differently from normal general taxation (VAT). If government is not anti-motorist, then in theory VAT on fuel is all that is needed, it just taxes the consumption fairly, driving on the roads wears the roads, goverment has to maintain the roads as it is general service managed by government and the VAT on fuel covers that fair expense. In fact JUST VAT on fuel in UK raises enough money to maintain the roads as they are today, they are far from perfect, but that level of quality would be expected if only VAT is paid (would be about £4 billion a year). The fact government has another tax for it (actually 3 more taxes, arguably even 4) just means the roads must be perfect in UK.

Why am I telling all this? Just because I am trying to argue the point that it is possible to objectively decide if tax is "fair" or "unfair". Sure - everyone would like to pay as little taxes as possible, so we can't just automatically say all taxes are unfair. However, the tax becomes unfair when it is excessive, and money raised via that tax generates more receipts than the service it is covering requires. Again, hopefully you agree that government should only ever collect as much taxes as they spend on the services in the country? Yes/no? Because I can't see any reason why in democratic country there has to be any surplus in taxes? In monarchy, dictatorship - yeah sure, dictator collects excessive taxes, because dictator or king wants to enrich themselves. Basically, from their perspective they own the country and all the people within it so it is one way charge on the people "for being allowed to live on the soil which belongs to dictator". In democracy it is not like that, in democracy it is the people who "owns" the country, elected officials are only there to manage the services, meaning they collect some tax, take fair salary for their work of managing it and deliver the rest as a services for the people, there should never be any excess, at least not long term. This is very long winded way to say - tax must never collect more money than it intend to cover, else it objectively becomes "unfair tax". There could be justification for "unfair taxes", and duty on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes are justified by saying - "there is other indirect damages that such consumption creates", it does not matter if we agree with that, but that is justification - cigarettes cause cancer, then cancer increases the bill for NHS, so it is not fair to raise NI to cover cancer treatment because people choose to cause cancer to them selves when smoking. I actually have no issue with duty on fuel either - let's say car creates pollution and that "indirect damage" which can't simply be covered by VAT. But why do we have VED? What that suppose to cover, it literally covers nothing, therefore objectively it is not only unfair tax, but also unjustifiable one. If we just generally need more money in the budget, then we should raise VAT, or ideally CGT (in fact I believe lack of comprehensive CGT is core of all our problems in UK... well and that our government is corrupt, inept and inefficient).

Tax per mile is already there and always been there, there is no need for another tax per mile, existing tax already covers expenditure related to roads maintenance and can be prioritised accordingly based on desired level of service (quality of the roads in this case). Fuel duty is unfair tax, which is justified by pollution cars cause, this is also tax per mile, the only issue I have is that fuel duty is also taxed itself, so this component of double taxation should be removed, it is almost like mistake (VAT should be charged before duty, not after, general rule - there should be no tax on tax). VED is completely made-up and unjustifiable tax which does not need to exist and which is general tax, but only charged to motorists, which is doubly unfair considering that motorists already pay two taxes. If government still needs more taxation to fund general services, then they should charge general taxes, for example NI should be increased because NHS funding is clearly insufficient (there is rabbit hole on that as well, but maybe that is for another time). VAT seems to be mostly fair. Income taxes are honestly already too high, creating new issue of working poor, and "poor" high-earners, this in principle has destroyed middle-class in UK and one of key indicators of "poor living standards" is lack of middle class in the country. And then we get to CGT, which in my opinion is how money "escapes the system", we are poor as a country, yet have many millionaires and billionaires, because CGT failed to tax excessive income on capital, if we fix CGT, we can fix our budgets and can completely get rid of VED and probably even NI. The more you earn, the more you pay - this is very simple, but fundamental rule for fair taxation... and I don't even talk about progressive taxation, just flat rate of say 20%... yet in UK we have progressive taxation for workers and regressive taxation for rich... it is totally broken, we charge poor to support the rich... this is Robin Hood in reverse!

In short - there is no need for new tax, there is no need for VED to begin with, so it is not clear to me why a third tax "in effect" per mile is needed. It just seems inherently unfair to exist and it does not cover nay particular purpose, statistically and historically we know that motorists fund roads excessively, yet our roads are crumbling.

[Malc1]

42 minutes ago, Boomer54 said:

Only like I have a crumb rather than the whole cake. "pay per miie" in the sense you are using it there is a small part of 'tax' paid per mile' and an even smaller part of the overall cost summed by the term "pay per mile" that incorporates the element that is tax per mile.

I did like your earlier comment about just making that whole issue of 'road tax' inclusive into the cost of fuel. I mean that cuts right through a whole wagonload of nonsensicial bull.st nevermind eradicating a lot of bureacratic cost. Irony is that kind of effective policy initiative in a commercial business would get you fast tracked to senior management. In the public sector it will get buried so deep it will never see the light of day.

…….. and if you were a Prime Minister or Govt Minister or even the Chancellor of the Exchequer ……… Rachel Reeves ……… it would get you ????????  …….. where do you think 🤔 …….. ah yes, Sue Gray to the rescue ……. she’ll be that force to be reckoned with that will diktat the way forward ……such is her absolute power base right now. reminiscent of Herr Hitler,  Chancellor of Germany ……. and we know where that absolute power leads eh ! 
Socialism to the fore, for the People of course 

( salutes and clicking of heels not yet mandatory ) 🤣😂. 🥵

Malc 

[Malc1]

Ah ……… simpler solution to help covering all these Road Costs …… just levy a “ one off “  Special Measures Payment from each OAP not in DWP Benefits of say £1000 raising some simple OAP 10 million x £1000.

Wow an extra £10,000,000,000 === £10 bn    help sort the Road Black Hole for sure …… there might be a little left over to fill a pothole or several 

Again I despair …… over the utter impunity this Starmer Govt has in doing whatever anti-social efforts it wishes 🥵🥵🥵

Malc 

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Malc1 said:

Ah ……… simpler solution to help covering all these Road Costs …… just levy a “ one off “  Special Measures Payment from each OAP not in DWP Benefits of say £1000 raising some simple OAP 10 million x £1000.

Wow an extra £10,000,000,000 === £10 bn    help sort the Road Black Hole for sure …… there might be a little left over to fill a pothole or several 

Again I despair …… over the utter impunity this Starmer Govt has in doing whatever anti-social efforts it wishes 🥵🥵🥵

Malc 

I am not saying new government is great, but to argue it is worse than the government that preceded it would be nearly impossible.

If you think Ms Revees wealth is excessive, then what you have to say about Mr Sunak? His personal wealth has increased by £120 million just in 2023 ALONE. Even taking Ms Revees large earning it would have taken her 218 YEARS to earn it... and that would be just gross earnings before taxes and expenses... HE raised this NET wealth already after taxes and expenses by £120 million. Let's look at another "hero of the people", Mr. Moog... he is on ~£100million himself. So £550k is really almost embarrassing earnings by those standards.

Talking about anti-social with new goverment kind of doesn't work, considering the government they replaced were outright CRIMINAL. 

Now sure - comparing new government with the most criminal goverment in UK's history since it became (flawed at best) "democracy", is not saying much and it does not mean that new government can't be criticised... however I think it would be fair to give any government at least 6 months to get up-to speed and set their agenda in motion... and probably double of that considering strict 2 party system that ruled UK for nearly 100 years and the fact that labour was out of government for 14 years. So perhaps this time next year we can have discussion whenever you overall like their policy or not. That they are better than previous government is kind of already known, but whenever their policy will benefit the country as a whole in long term is remains to be seen.

[Malc1]

Linas hi …… You have clearly not studied nor understood the Sunak story ……… son of immigrant parents. a GP and a Pharmicist  …….. of immense societal help with the NHS and their NHS patients and pharmacy patients too ……. totally self-made and working immensely hard, affording their son’s private education ……. from which Rishi progressed thru’ his own unstinting work ethic and thru his devout Hinduism to become a successful UK banker …….. marrying his beloved …… with immensely hard working parents who incredibly created, from scratch, by his own supreme endeavour, the world class Infosys ( akin Microsoft ) and from which the now, from her shareholding in her father’s created business, Mrs Sunak enjoys, it is said, a ( UK taxed ) income whatever of @£1mn a month 

Just don’t be jealous of his success, political and work ethic eh ! 

I don’t know of any other MP with such work ethic or unstinting commitment to the population of the UK 

AND

Messing, socially detrimentally with the comparative small incomes and “ values “ of UK OAPs was NEVER on the Tories Agenda ……… 

NOW ……. Linas 

CAR ROAD TAX …… please get back on subject ……. it’s so important and affects far more than simply the abrupt cessation of the Winter Fuel Payment ……. it even affects those 11.4 million OAPs who might have cars 

CAR ROAD TAX ……  shown clearly here encompasses very many forms and is possibly going to increase significantly come the autumn budget 

It’s possible not many Lexus owners will be substantially or significantly detrimentally financially affected …… as a proportion of their disposable income 

Fingers xd  🤞🤞🤞

Malc 

[Linas.P]

41 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

Linas hi …… You have clearly not studied nor understood the Sunak story ……… son of immigrant parents. a GP and a Pharmicist  …….. of immense societal help with the NHS and their NHS patients and pharmacy patients too ……. totally self-made and working immensely hard, affording their son’s private education ……. from which Rishi progressed thru’ his own unstinting work ethic and thru his devout Hinduism to become a successful UK banker …….. marrying his beloved …… with immensely hard working parents who incredibly created, from scratch, by his own supreme endeavour, the world class Infosys ( akin Microsoft ) and from which the now, from her shareholding in her father’s created business, Mrs Sunak enjoys, it is said, a ( UK taxed ) income whatever of @£1mn a month 

Just don’t be jealous of his success, political and work ethic eh ! 

I don’t know of any other MP with such work ethic or unstinting commitment to the population of the UK 

AND

Messing, socially detrimentally with the comparative small incomes and “ values “ of UK OAPs was NEVER on the Tories Agenda ……… 

NOW ……. Linas 

CAR ROAD TAX …… please get back on subject ……. it’s so important and affects far more than simply the abrupt cessation of the Winter Fuel Payment ……. it even affects those 11.4 million OAPs who might have cars 

CAR ROAD TAX ……  shown clearly here encompasses very many forms and is possibly going to increase significantly come the autumn budget 

It’s possible not many Lexus owners will be substantially or significantly detrimentally financially affected …… as a proportion of their disposable income 

Fingers xd  🤞🤞🤞

Malc 

First of all, you have clearly not understood Indian "caste system", basically a type of slavery which still exist in India... and this is important. Infosis is not a significant, nor world class institution, it is business of slavery. Also they are not "akin Microsoft", they are IT consultancy/integrator, there is huge difference between making the product and just installing it on clients PC. In short - his wife parents money is dirty, very dirty and actually even bloody. There is no much difference from ruzzian oil or any other oligarch run business, or blood diamonds from Africa, it is money made by social class domination, slavery and coercion, her parents are "Indian oligarchs". If Roman Abramovich had daughter living in UK, she would be as "well deserving citizen" as Mrs Sunak.  Also she was so called "non-dom", meaning she paid no tax on immense wealth. His parents contribution to the society are irrelevant, he himself was investment banker making most of his fortune disaster trading during 2008 financial crisis. Basically he is the type of banker that makes the "banker" name sound bad. Regardless of the background, please explain or justify how ANYONE can make £120 million a year? Nevermind a sitting Prime Minister... the level of copium to believe this is not corruption and not outright criminal is unbelievable in your comment. And you dare to attack Ms. Revees and her husband on "poultry" by comparison £550k a year (which by the way doesn't quite add-up, she is on ~£130k and he is closer to £170k, making it more like £300k), they are at best "middle-class" if we delude that such thing still exists in UK. This is outright hypocrisy to say "don't be jealous", yet attacking people who contributed way more and worked way harder their whole life and still makes much less then your idol!

Now... compared to criminals that preceded Sunak, I can't really attack his record too much. He was clearly corrupt and allowed the party to enrich themselves from corruption, his own £120 million of wealth increase should be investigates as it is unclear how he could legally become so much richer in a single year, but that is more or less "business as usual" for politicians. However, same applies to the attacks you make on labour.

I have said that before and I repeat it again - I am ideologically conservative, but also I am not "party political", I will not "tow the line" if that means corruption, criminal PM, criminal MPs, goverment preventing course of justice etc. As such, I am not big fan of any socialist government, Labour included, ideologically my believes are opposite of their (even if sometimes I may support policies that are left leaning, like government owned road maintenance), however I accept that short term pain and policies that I am directly against me are worth the cost of pushing criminals out of government. 

That said - I believe motoring will become worse under labour, labour as any socialists are anti-private transport and pro-public everything, meaning that car taxation is likely to rise... that was known from the day one... and that is the price worth paying not to have criminals in the government. 

[Malc1]

Cest le vie …….. 

CAR ROAD TAX ……. as night follows day, will increase methinks  😳

Malc 

 

[Linas.P]

On that we agree, inevitable with socialist government.

Also taxation overall should increase in general, more social work will mean more taxes... I just hope they going to go after rich and not the poor like the previous government. Whenever that is personally good for me is questionable, because I am both rich and poor depending on how one looks at it. I just hope for fair taxation, which has never happened in this country so perhaps little bit unreasonably optimistic from me. 

[Dells]

The last three pages may have helped people have a moan but it won’t help a jot , every government official whatever party they belong to is there for an easy life and getting paid mega bucks for doing not much and claiming expenses in the process, would the current government have paid everyone to stay at home I am not sure and yes the country is in dept because of 2 lockdowns & idiot Putin, & if there is a 2 billion black hole why agree to pay all public sector workers up to 15% extra ( are MP’s ) public sector workers, I have had a moan as well.

Dell

[Jgtcracer]

I do find the taxation via fuel model the cleanest but still feel that it’s not particularly fair.  If it’s a percentage of the fuel I purchase, and I purchase more of it then I pay more road tax than my neighbour for doing the same distance.  
 

Claiming my car is bad for the environment due to a poor mpg is a weak argument too, if that’s the case then shouldn’t emissions come back into it. What about vehicle weight too as mentioned above???

i guess this is the problem, it’s a complex discussion.  I remember learning early on in my career that you can’t please all of the people all of the time….

[Linas.P]

23 minutes ago, Jgtcracer said:

I do find the taxation via fuel model the cleanest but still feel that it’s not particularly fair.  If it’s a percentage of the fuel I purchase, and I purchase more of it then I pay more road tax than my neighbour for doing the same distance.  
 

Claiming my car is bad for the environment due to a poor mpg is a weak argument too, if that’s the case then shouldn’t emissions come back into it. What about vehicle weight too as mentioned above???

i guess this is the problem, it’s a complex discussion.  I remember learning early on in my career that you can’t please all of the people all of the time….

That is why taxing fuel is so fair, whatever it is that causes poor MPG, your driving style, weight, just inefficient engine or whatever else... then get's taxed. 

If it is the size or weight of the vehicle that causes it, then we can quickly deduct that larger and heavier vehicle will wear down the road more, therefore should pay more per mile.

If it is the powerful, large engine, or the way you drive, then again that will be reflected to the wear at the road and tax you pay per mile.

If it is indeed just a very old vehicle, or one in bad condition that just burns oil and excessive amount of fuel, then perhaps it also pollutes more, so again... it is just fair it pay more per mile.

Of course it would be unfair if you neighbour with 0.9L Fiesta paid same as you in RC-F for the road per mile, so I just can't see how it isn't "particularly fair".

That is exactly the reason why charging per mile in a way of percentage of the price of the fuel itself is such a perfect way of charging road tax. More importantly - we already have it, nothing really needs changing, it is in place, it is working, it is mostly fair... we really just need to abolish VED. Remove double taxation of duty and perhaps increase the duty itself... the end result would looks something like this - instead of paying VED (that would be abolished), one would pay maybe £1 for fuel + VAT, making it £1.20/L + let's say £0.60 of "fuel duty". Total price per litre being close to what it is now ~£1.80. For somebody only driving 4000 mile a year, this would work out cheaper than paying VED... for somebody that drives 20,000 miles obviously it will be a lot more, but that is the point of "pay per mile", why should I pay same when I only use car occasionally and at times it stays parked for weeks, as somebody who drives across UK every other day.

[Bob King]

On 8/16/2024 at 11:40 AM, Boomer54 said:

It had occurred to me that the old 'clocking' issue might have a revival under a pay per mile scheme.

I think the modern term is "mileage correction" 😮😉

[GMB]

14 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I just hope they going to go after rich and not the poor like the previous government

They ( Labour ) haven't been in power very long but I have seen no evidence of going after the wealthy or very wealthy yet. But a lot of evidence of going after he poorer folk who worked hard and tried to save for a meagre private pension.  I get the feeling that they are just after the easy targets and have no confidence in their "promises". What a disappointment they seem to be, or then again, we should have known based on their previous performance years ago.

[Phil xxkr]

6 minutes ago, GMB said:

They ( Labour ) haven't been in power very long but I have seen no evidence of going after the wealthy or very wealthy yet. But a lot of evidence of going after he poorer folk who worked hard and tried to save for a meagre private pension.  I get the feeling that they are just after the easy targets and have no confidence in their "promises". What a disappointment they seem to be, or then again, we should have known based on their previous performance years ago.

We did know and voted otherwise 👍

[Malc1]

2 minutes ago, GMB said:

They ( Labour ) haven't been in power very long but I have seen no evidence of going after the wealthy or very wealthy yet. But a lot of evidence of going after he poorer folk who worked hard and tried to save for a meagre private pension.  I get the feeling that they are just after the easy targets and have no confidence in their "promises". What a disappointment they seem to be, or then again, we should have known based on their previous performance years ago.

The Govt and Chancellor of the Exchequer do seem to be going after the easy touch, seemingly without a Voice to be able to effectively protest .........  the OAPs ( vide Winter Fuel Payment thread )

BUT

remember this is the Car Road Tax thread and there are some 26million ( is it ? ) cars on our UK roads and this is such a huge and easy target to attack At Will ...... and I have every confidence in this Govt that THEY WILL screw lots more from the motorist in whichever way they feel they wish ......  we're just simply " sitting ducks " waiting to be screwed over for all we can give 

It's sad but there we are ............  blame the labour voters eh !   hoodwinked or nay !  ..  it simply rests at their door  ..  as of course would be the great success stories of the Labour Govt yet to be revealed ......  watch this space  ( if you have the time ) 🤣😂  😁

 

Malc

[Mossypossy]

Cannot really charge per mile without every single car having a telematic box installed.

If odometer reading based then you get punished for taking your car abroad.

Those pesky electric cars have complicated things for the Treasury.

Maybe just a simple annual tax based on the weight of the vehicle to start with.

But happy to pay my share because the alternative is seeing those Tory goons pontificating every day.

[Malc1]

On 8/17/2024 at 11:02 AM, Malc1 said:

and especially Convertible Car owners will be given an “ open to sunshine “  car tax next ……

your chance will come as sure as night follows day .  and the sunshine  ....... hehehehehehehe

Malc

[dutchie01]

9 hours ago, Linas.P said:

we really just need to abolish VED. Remove double taxation of duty and perhaps increase the duty itself...

Don't count on it. Tax that will be abolished? Like snow in August. It is the TAX office you are talking about and their only task seems to get as much fund from the public as possible. In all countries the same. More tax points means more tax = more free money to spend for the Government. Like malc says motorists are an easy and soft target, not organized. Increase tax and total silence. Increase company Tax and all hell breaks loose.  

[Linas.P]

45 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

Don't count on it. Tax that will be abolished? Like snow in August. It is the TAX office you are talking about and their only task seems to get as much fund from the public as possible. In all countries the same. More tax points means more tax = more free money to spend for the Government. Like malc says motorists are an easy and soft target, not organized. Increase tax and total silence. Increase company Tax and all hell breaks loose.  

ohhh 100%... I am not saying it is at all realistic. I just find premise of this topic kind of strange and borderline irrelevant... why introduce "pay per mile VED", when we already have very well functioning "pay per mile" tax?

1 hour ago, Mossypossy said:

Cannot really charge per mile without every single car having a telematic box installed.

If odometer reading based then you get punished for taking your car abroad.

Those pesky electric cars have complicated things for the Treasury.

Maybe just a simple annual tax based on the weight of the vehicle to start with.

But happy to pay my share because the alternative is seeing those Tory goons pontificating every day.

As I have already explained  - per mile tax not only already exists, you already pay it and it works perfectly without any telematic box. You pay it every time you put fuel in the tank. Only the electric cars will have to be addressed in some other way. 

[GMB]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

As I have already explained  - per mile tax not only already exists, you already pay it and it works perfectly without any telematic box. You pay it every time you put fuel in the tank. Only the electric cars will have to be addressed in some other way. 

Not a bad concept. Abolishing road tax and increasing fuel duty to compensate would also have secondary benefits i.e. all those foreign vehicles, lorries, transports, tourists etc. contributing to our impoverished country.

[GMB]

There is no road tax in France and fuel is not a lot more expensive - just for comparison....

Although they do have motorway tolls and the insurance is taxed a little more, but I wish we had roads as good as in France.

[Mossypossy]

I spent £50 on tolls in one day.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, GMB said:

There is no road tax in France and fuel is not a lot more expensive - just for comparison....

Although they do have motorway tolls and the insurance is taxed a little more, but I wish we had roads as good as in France.

If you using spirit then it is a lot cheaper... you get 20% worse MPG, but at 0.75 Euro/L I can't complain. Insurance may be taxed more, but also - anyone can drive any insured car and the cost of insurance itself is fraction of what it costs in UK.

Yes, France is interesting example. They indeed have no other road tax, other than on fuel (similar to the "fuel" duty in UK). Also tolls are not technically road tax, because on can only use "national" highways which are free. So it is interesting and different system. They have all public national roads for free just maintained by tax on fuel (effectively pay per mile) and they have privately owned roads that one can use for a toll. 

We also spend like £250 for tolls just a month ago and it could get pricey, but in theory unless you crossing whole France it is possible to drive there without paying anything for roads. And importantly roads are great in France, certainly not best in Europe, but compared to UK they are amazing, and 130km/h, not retarded 112km/h.

Also there are many countries that don't any other chargers apart of tax on fuel and still they have comparable or better roads than UK. In short - governments will try to scam motorists as much as they can get away with, as happened in UK they could get away with quite a lot so they have quadruple taxation on the same thing, in other countries that would cause rioting.