Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
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Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#2There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car..
Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Etc. etc.
Which was great to get the initial people to convert, and get the infrastructure in place. But now it's time to tax them. Lots of budgets are now off because they estimated X amounts from cars using toll roads, but half of them don't pay the price.
While they don't emit carbon dioxide, they are just as deadly as normal cars. Also pollute more from the tires being heavier. Just as noisy. Need the same expensive roads. And as all cars they ruin the city.
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#3"Road tax" (a levy to cover the cost of maintaining the public highway) obviously needs to be extended to cover EVs at some point. I'm surprised it hasn't already.
However, broadly speaking: tax the thing you want less of.
There's various strategies being raised to cover this so-called "lost revenue", including the tracking of your home electricity usage via smart boxes to tax you on charging your own car (!!) and charging cars a per-mile-tax instead of on fuel.
But, if we're to believe that EVs are currently being incentivised because the Government wants to lower emissions (and thus avoid any costs of continued nationwide carbon reliance) then perhaps a study should be done to see if the cost-saving of people moving _away_ from ICEs outweighs the lost revenue of taxing petrol/diesel, in the long run.
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#4There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car.. Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Et…
The point of road taxes is to pay for maintenance and expansion. Roads break down over time if you do not maintain them.
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#5Tax vehicles based on actual wear to the road surface and add it to the annual tag renewal. Of course, that would stop us from conveniently ignoring the fact that the vast majority of road wear comes from semi-trucks and other heavy vehicles.
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#6There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car.. Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Et…
It's a combination. Revenues gathered via road tax have a provision for older/more polluting cars so you pay less the newer your vehicle, essentially. Some of the money is used to fund the maintenance of highways, though.
Local roads are funded by council tax, so this probably dispells the anti-cycling argument because presumably the cyclists do pay council tax (unless they're on motorways which is another issue.)
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#7There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car.. Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Et…
It's very odd they used the term Road Tax. It's always been known as Vehicle Tax for the very reason you've pointed out. Hence why you don't need to pay tax to ride a bicycle on the road.
The other area they are losing out not mentioned in the article is Benefit in Kind tax for EVs used as company cars. At some point, that will also need to end and be more in alignment with ICE vehicles.
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#8There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car.. Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Et…
The point of road taxes is to pay for maintenance and expansion. Roads break down over time if you do not maintain them.
this is paid out of local taxation. Which is why pedestrians, cylists, equestrians, tractors, cows and ducks are allowed to used the road.
There is no such thing as road tax.
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#9There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car.. Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Et…
It's very odd they used the term Road Tax. It's always been known as Vehicle Tax for the very reason you've pointed out. Hence why you don't need to pay tax to ride a bicycle on the road. The other area they are losing out not mentioned in the article is Benefit in Kind tax for EVs used as company cars. At some point, that will also need to end and be more in alignment with ICE vehicles.
It's a handy dog whistle so we know they are part of the car lobby
edit: spelling
Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue
#10How about the government just finds a way to make do?
It's kind of preposterous that we're staring an economic slowdown and high inflation in the face after decades of incomes flat-lining and the .gov is telling people to cough up more. I get that EV owners are statistically richer but you're not gonna change that by raising the TCO via taxes.