stifflersmom   11 #37 Posted July 24, 2019 5 hours ago, biotechpete said: I think there's a fundamental flaw in the inherent assumptions at play in this discussion in as much as people seem to think that VED and fuel duty are somehow designed to pay for roads, they aren't.  As the house of commons transport committee puts it As with all taxes, the best way to prevent avoidance is to spread the costs in multiple ways. VED is higher on big cars mostly because drivers of big cars can afford to pay a bit more tax.  Roads are largely paid for, not from general taxation, but from council tax.  Indeed the costs of motoring, roads, pollution, injuries and related issues result in a subsidy from tax payers to motorists. Reflecting these costs in fuel duty alone would be over 15p/km or a pump price, based on average mpg of over £2.70 per litre.  All that said, I'd like to see VED or some other tax include some element of vehicle weight and therefore road damage caused. Good post. It will likely require a generational mindset change to accept that motorists are currently subsidised. Road damage scales with the fourth power of axle weight, so a 2000kg people carrier causes 16 times as much damage as a 1000kg hatchback. When parked on pavements the damage level increases because they're not built to withstand the same loading as the roads. Clearly HGVs cause a disproportionate amount of damage to their axle weights, so implementing a workable scale if charges for them is required, but politically challenging.  Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Janus   28 #38 Posted July 24, 2019 The last 2 posts don't seems to be about   VED remaining on the car, or being put on fuel. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
biotechpete   10 #39 Posted July 26, 2019 On 24/07/2019 at 12:16, Janus said: The last 2 posts don't seems to be about   VED remaining on the car, or being put on fuel. Mine clearly was, it's just that you seem not to have taken the points onboard. What that proposition in practice means is scrapping VED. It's blatant cakeism. Why 'shift' VED to fuel? How about putting VED on income tax, or insurance premium tax, or whatever? It's a tax designed to raise revenue to pay for public services. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Janus   28 #40 Posted July 26, 2019 10 hours ago, biotechpete said: How about putting VED on income tax, or insurance premium tax, or whatever? It's a tax designed to raise revenue to pay for public services.  How would those options relate to 'the more a person/ pollutes the more a person pays ?  Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...