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Pay by the mile...


pietruszka
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[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1337182917' post='1656822']
It's not that I'm unsympathetic to anyone's plight. But we've conflated an action - driving a car - with the idea of freedom. True, perhaps in the 1950's but not now. Motoring is a drag.
[/quote]

People may or may not think motoring is a drag. I rarely travel during the rush hour and live in a rural area so traffic is not a big deal for me these days.

The real point is that it shouldn't be up to the government to make such judgements on our behalf. I'm not aware of motorists yelling out for black boxes and road pricing and I don't recall it being a big issue at the last general election so HOW DARE they try to foist their mad schemes onto us.

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[quote name='pietruszka' timestamp='1337173409' post='1656597']
I don't think it is incorrect, and you've backed up my point. If someone has a car which is road tax free, they are still using the roads, in fact, they could use the roads more than me and I'll be paying road tax and they won't. Which is why I feel that all cars should have some level of road tax on them. They use the roads no matter how many miles they do. They shouldn't be void because they have lower emissions.
As someone said previously, perhaps a revision of the system whereby we band the miles we cover like the vehicle tax bands. For example, drive 2,000 miles a year pay £30 road tax, drive 20,000 miles a year pay £250. It makes sense in the world of car insurance. Just a thought.
[/quote]

Firstly 'road tax' is not hypothecated and roads are maintained from the general taxation pot.

Secondly, I agree such a tax should not be emissions based, as such.

Thirdly, I agree with the principle of charging more tax the more miles you drive.

Where we seem to disagree is how to apply this tax. My point is that tax on fuel meets all your requirements - it can't be evaded and the more you drive the more tax you pay. What could be simpler and fairer?

The added benefit is that cars would become expensive to run rather than own. At present, the fixed costs of owning a car are so high that there's every incentive to use cars instead of public transport in order to got your 'money's worth'. If it wasn't so expensive to leave the car in the driveway but fuel was more expensive then people would be more likely to use trains and buses.

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[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1337186268' post='1656890']
Firstly 'road tax' is not hypothecated and roads are maintained from the general taxation pot.

Secondly, I agree such a tax should not be emissions based, as such.

Thirdly, I agree with the principle of charging more tax the more miles you drive.

Where we seem to disagree is how to apply this tax. My point is that tax on fuel meets all your requirements - it can't be evaded and the more you drive the more tax you pay. What could be simpler and fairer?

The added benefit is that cars would become expensive to run rather than own. At present, the fixed costs of owning a car are so high that there's every incentive to use cars instead of public transport in order to got your 'money's worth'. If it wasn't so expensive to leave the car in the driveway but fuel was more expensive then people would be more likely to use trains and buses.
[/quote]

Now it's clearer! And yes, it makes perfect sense. This would of course rely on the current road tax system being abolished. And we all know that's not going to happen and something will come up in it's place.

Johnston raises a good point to. My bro races karts, and fuel is insane in one of those things.




Dan

Edited by pietruszka
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[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1337171275' post='1656528']
No, no, no!!! More useless and expensive bureacracy. Road tax should be SCRAPPED!!!

I'm not stupid enough to think that car-based tax will be abolished but why have a tax that is so complex and costly to administer when the simple answer is just to put all vehicle tax onto fuel? The collection mechanism is simple and already exists, the more fuel you use the more miles you would travel the more road you would wear out and the more tax you would pay. Plus, it's completely impossible to evade.
[/quote]

With the exception of the naughty people that use pink diesel, you're largely right.

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[quote name='Johnston' timestamp='1337186625' post='1656897']
One problem wit extra tax on fuel.

Not all Fuel used gets used on the road. Paying a road tax to fuel your Lawn Mower or the sons day out racing his scrambler, seems a little daft.
[/quote]
Kind of. But (using your examples) How many people that have gardens large enough to necessitate petrol mowers can't afford to power them? Likewise XC motorbikes if you can afford to buy/maintain/transport such a thing, a few extra pounds spent on fuel is no real hardship.
Consider it a tax on luxury items. Like VAT on bourbon biscuits. :)

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[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1337160217' post='1656285']
There's a big civil liberties issue here - a black box in every car (ostensibly for pay-by-mile monitoring) would provide an excellent opportunity for the government to keep tabs on the whereabouts and activities of every car user in the country, thus further eroding any existing shred of personal privacy we still have left.

And before anyone says 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear,' don't bother - that's lazy thinking.
[/quote]


+1

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[quote name='Johnston' timestamp='1337191496' post='1656991']
But say for talks sake I buy my self a track day car. I'll never be on the road . so why should I be paying a "Road Tax" to blast along a circuit.

I used to work at a rally school. 40 to 60L a Session two sessions a day. Plus the Kart track. That will be a lot of "Road tax" for vehicles never going near a road . Officially the cars don't even exist.
[/quote]

I agree with you that non-travel related [u]business[/u] fuel users (including the rally school example, users of chainsaws/strimmers and other petrol/diesel powered appliances for commercial use) ought not to be disadvantaged.
Your track day car is most definitely a luxury item, though.

Which leads me to the question; What are we taxing with each tax, and what does each tax then actually pay for?

[b]If[/b] Fuel duty is levied as (partly) a means to to tax/discourage emissions, then it ought to be payable by all vehicles and devices that generate emissions through the consumption of petrol/diesel, whether they be generators, outboard motors, snowmobiles etc. ad infinitum.

[b]If[/b] Vehicle excise duty is levied to compensate for damage to roads, then (hopefully obviously) vehicles which do not use roads need not be so taxed. What the government has done, however, is to blur the lines between the two taxes by introducing a variable rate based on emissions.

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[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' timestamp='1337193651' post='1657028']
Which leads me to the question; What are we taxing with each tax, and what does each tax then actually pay for?

[b]If[/b] Fuel duty is levied as (partly) a means to to tax/discourage emissions, then it ought to be payable by all vehicles and devices that generate emissions through the consumption of petrol/diesel, whether they be generators, outboard motors, snowmobiles etc. ad infinitum.

[b]If[/b] Vehicle excise duty is levied to compensate for damage to roads, then (hopefully obviously) vehicles which do not use roads need not be so taxed. What the government has done, however, is to blur the lines between the two taxes by introducing a variable rate based on emissions.
[/quote]

Those are interesting [u]Ifs[/u] but I suspect it's really a waste of time trying to justify them in this, or any, way really. For example, petrol has always been taxed but it's only recently been justified on the basis of trying to save the planet from nasty emissions.

Similarly, things like cigarette and alcohol taxes - the justifications change with the times.

No, the reason for all these myriad different taxes is to make the system so complex that a) it provides (unproductive) employment for loads of people, B) it makes it more difficult for people to understand exactly how much of their hard-earned money is confiscated by the government, and c) gives the government plenty of social-engineering choices.

It also allows the Chancellor to drag out his annual budget speech.

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[quote name='lettsguitars' timestamp='1337173590' post='1656602']
Surely the real fact is that we should all be driving electric cars by now. And the bods should be making life hard for petrol users.
[/quote]

But I am not sure we are prepared for that.

Let's see. Tomorrow everybody in the north of Edinburgh buys a new electric car. We all charge it at night at home. Oh wait, we don't have power points yet... but let's assume they could be installed overninght too.
What happens about the extra electricity demand?

Are our lines ready for that? I suspect not.

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[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1337182917' post='1656822']
By contrast, if one lives in suburbia, there are buses and trains. Marvellous things - not as cheap per mile a s a private car, but then one doesn't have to front up thousands in the first place.
[/quote]

ideally.

But reality often hits you in the face if you try to use public transport.

One example: I often have to go from where I live, North of Edinburgh, to another location, also North of Edinburgh. It's close, but not close enough to walk, and certainly not if you have to carry something large or heavy. By car it's about 10-12min. By bus? Usually over an hour. Why? Because I have to take a bus into the city centre, and then another from there. There used to be a bus that connected me, but it stopped after 6.30pm. Now even that is gone. In Edinburgh, over the past few years they have revamped the bus lines removing peripheral services and making them more radial, and often lines that went across the centre now they stop there, so you may have to take two buses (with subsequent wait in the middle) to carry on.

The thing is public transport in every British city I have been in is not very good.

I would love to see a better coverage. Even if frequency has to be reduced, having something like "bustracker" that allows you to know when any given bus will pass by any given stop reduces the waits and allows you to plan your journeys much better. But the coverage is generally poor, unless you just want to go to the city centre and back.

What gets me is that 12 years ago, the service was better, and as the pressure to get people to use the public transport increases the service becomes worse. It seems to me they worked out that say 70% of the users travel in and out the centre, so they can improve that, have a majority of users happy, and forget about the remaining 30%. Or something along those lines.

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='lettsguitars' timestamp='1337173590' post='1656602']
Surely the real fact is that we should all be driving electric cars by now. And the bods should be making life hard for petrol users.[/quote][quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1337455377' post='1660438']
Let's see. Tomorrow everybody in the north of Edinburgh buys a new electric car. We all charge it at night at home. Oh wait, we don't have power points yet... but let's assume they could be installed overninght too. What happens about the extra electricity demand?
Are our lines ready for that? I suspect not.
[/quote]

It's not just about the infrastructure. Electric cars will do nothing to alleviate our upcoming energy crisis. The power for electric cars (electricity) is mainly produced by burning fossil fuels. Electric transport only makes sense if the power comes from renewables, which is not happening as (for example) part of the risible government budget for research into renewables is being diverted to subsidise 'fracking' and other harebrained fossil fuel schemes.

Edited by discreet
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[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1338474369' post='1675127']
Watch out it appears that the treasury is reading our thread and pinching our easy fix ideas.

[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18277311"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...litics-18277311[/url]
[/quote]

T'was bound to happen. More details here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/9301269/Drivers-punished-for-going-green.html

The fact is that UK plc is an expensive place to run these days and income tax alone just isn't enough. I've banged on enough in the past about how much tax we all pay and, frankly, a penny or two on income tax is neither here nor there. Add up all the tax you pay (income tax, NI, VAT, car tax, fuel tax, insurance tax, flying taxes, alcohol tax, tobacco tax, gas/electricity energy tax and it'll get close to 70%, more for higher rate taxpayers.

The rules may change but the outcome is always the same - the government always wins.

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[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1338477129' post='1675178']
Bollocks to your silly electric cars. Where's my flying car? I clearly remember that Raymond Baxter saying ... ([i]ramble, blither, moan[/i])
[/quote]

I want my jet pack. Still no jet pack! Too expensive and dangerous, apparently. I'm [i]very [/i]disappointed.

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[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1338478586' post='1675207']
The fact is that UK plc is an expensive place to run these days and income tax alone just isn't enough.
[/quote]

Well the easy solution is to do what people in the real world do - stop spending money on whims.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1338478586' post='1675207']
The rules may change but the outcome is always the same - the government always wins.
[/quote]

I'm wondering if the charity tax and pastie tax climb downs are just to soften us up for a nastier tax...

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[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1338492843' post='1675466']
Well the easy solution is to do what people in the real world do - stop spending money on whims.
[/quote]

Quite - whims like Trident and aircraft carriers that don't carry aircraft. *****.

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[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1338474369' post='1675127']
Watch out it appears that the treasury is reading our thread and pinching our easy fix ideas.

[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18277311"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...litics-18277311[/url]
[/quote]

Hmmm....

Good job they don't know about that huge pile of untaxed secret loot 530m down Brighton Pier... :rolleyes:

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[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1338492963' post='1675471']
Quite - whims like Trident and aircraft carriers that don't carry aircraft. *****.
[/quote]

And bailing out every country in Europe to prove what large genitalia they have whilst telling us that we need to tighten our belts... :angry:

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[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1338492843' post='1675466']
I'm wondering if the charity tax and pastie tax climb downs are just to soften us up for a nastier tax...
[/quote]

The very fact that government has teams of people working on these sort of pie-in-the-sky schemes (pasty-in-the-sky?) tells it's own story. They'll recover the money from somewhere, somehow.

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[quote name='Johnston' timestamp='1338494886' post='1675515']
don't you mean new aircraft carriers that are feckin' useless for the planes the wanted to carry.
[/quote]

Or that. Either way it's a great big waste of cash and a frigging shambles.
Bastard Golgafrinchans.

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golgafrinchans#Golgafrinchans"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golgafrinchans#Golgafrinchans[/url]

Edited by discreet
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