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Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

carwow.co.uk

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Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#21

Post by belorn »

matsemann wrote: post #2

There 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…

bicycle and pedestrians could be exempted from a road tax based on fairly simple assumption: the wear and tear is minimal compared to a car. It wouldn't even surprise me if the wear and tear is so small that it can't even be measured.

But I could be wrong. It would be interesting to hear if heavy bike/pedestrian roads have higher road maintenance than those that are used lightly. My guess would be that the major wear and tear comes from nature, water in particular, which mean wear and tear isn't based on usage.

When it come to tire pollution those would be better taxed on the tires themselves. Bike tires tend to be much much smaller than cars so the taxation wouldn't be that big of a deal to cyclists.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#22

Post by blibble »

techterrier wrote: post #9
martin-adams wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

or it could simply be that the commonly used term for Vehicle Excise Duty is "road tax" (even if it's technically incorrect)

not everything is a conspiracy

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#23

Post by lettergram »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #10

How 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.

Get your broader point about strained household budgets. But taxation is deflationary. Raising taxes lowers inflation.

Lol assuming inflation is caused by an increased money supply; not the material food shortage we are seeing.

Further, this type of taxation is a regressive tax.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#24

Post by throwaway0a5e »

techterrier wrote: post #9
martin-adams wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

When you try and look for dog whistles everywhere the world becomes a useless cacophony of high pitched screeching. Road tax and vehicle tax are used pretty much interchangeably and I wouldn't read into the word choice any more than I'd read into the results of the coin toss.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lettergram wrote: post #23
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get your broader point about strained household budgets. But taxation is deflationary. Raising taxes lowers inflation.

Lol assuming inflation is caused by an increased money supply; not the material food shortage we are seeing. Further, this type of taxation is a regressive tax.

> assuming inflation is caused by an increased money supply; not the material food shortage we are seeing

Doesn’t matter. Fiscal taxation (spending) reduces (increases) aggregate demand directly. No need for monetary transmission channels.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#26

Post by WelcomeShorty »

Same issue here in Switzerland. I am sure this will popup in all countries that have stimulated these EVs via tax benefits.

Just bought mine (Audi e-tron) and am happily surprised by all the subsidies and rebates, but it is clear that does not scale.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#27

Post by timthorn »

tigerlily wrote: post #12

> Smart home wallbox chargers could in theory tell the electricity grid it was a car being charged, but homeowners could just plug a three-pin extension lead into a normal socket to charge their car, circumventing any such communication between grid and charge. To encourage folk to use their wall box, offer a discount rate in exchange for utility control of charging. That way load can be shifted off peak if needed.

All new chargers installed in the UK must now be smart, by law.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#28

Post by cocoflunchy »

tigerlily wrote: post #15
causi wrote: post #5

Tax 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.

I hear road wear scales with the fourth power of vehicle mass.

Found this discussion while looking for a source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25171899

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#29

Post by causi »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #17
causi wrote: post #5

Tax 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.

That would just result in a trivial tax for personal vehicles and high taxes on heavy trucks (which would just get passed on resulting in more or less a consumption tax, which isn't necessarily bad but that's outside scope for here) Additionally, despite a lot of people saying they want to use taxes to "handle externalities" or some other sort of "pay per usage" type manner like that what they actually want is to tax…

That would just result in a trivial tax for personal vehicles and high taxes on heavy trucks (which would just get passed on resulting in more or less a consumption tax)

That is the entire point. Why are we subsidizing other peoples' bad decisions? If you want to go shop for fast fashion every other day or drive a 9,036-pound electric Hummer the rest of us should not pay the price for your jackassery.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#30

Post by dazc »

faichai wrote: post #19

Everyone always seems to jump from general schemes (road tax, fuel duty) to Orwellian tracking (GPS everywhere). Seems like a simple scheme of mileage tracking and net charge tracking would do. You then have an overall energy use / mile figure that you can use to price each mile so people who buy more efficient cars are rewarded, and then charge by total number of miles, so people who do fewer miles pay less.

Maybe not a long term alternative but taxing drivers behaviour via extreme penalties rather than the type of fuel or vehicle they use would not only raise revenue but may also encourage people to drive in a safer and more fuel-efficient manner?

For example, overtaking a cyclist regardless of the fact that you are already approaching a stop junction should result in a fine of at least £10,000.

Tailgating in a dangerous and aggressive manner, £50,000.

From everyday observation, this would raise a few billion in no time at all and price some very stupid and aggressive people off the roads entirely.

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