Would you like free road tax ?

[james butler]

James, I think your system works only until a significant number of cars don't use conventional fuels. I can see electric or hydrogen cars (or both) gaining significant market share over the next 10-20 years. I already see a reasonable number of BMW i3 and Nissan Leafs around Bedford.

but electric cars are tax free anyway?

Then you'd probably have to have a "Big Brother" monitoring system to charge users per mile, or go back to a single payment system like now.

Having said that, another tax on fuel (there are several already) would probably be a cost-effective solution for the remaining fossil-fuel users.

why would you need to? if the tax is in the fuel charged at the pump, therefore to get fuel you would be paying tax. if you use a lot of fuel you would be paying a lot of tax.
if you dont use a lot of fuel whether it be because your car is very fuel efficient or its a classic and you dont take it out much you woukd be essentially paying out less tax per year
plus the i3 has in somecases got a petrol driven range extender so they would be paying tax for the fuel they are using too. this would mean all hybrids are taxed in how much fuel they really use.

so basically what im saying is per litre of fuel the tax is allways the same charged at the pump.
how much fuel you use depends on the car you have and its usage.
use it less or have an eco car you use less taxed fuel
have a gas guzzler or do a lot of miles you use more taxed fuel.
it works for every scenario.

[james butler]

for example if they put 5p extra per litre VED tax at the pump so everyone pays the same rate throughout the uk
my tank holds what 50 litres typically when i fill it up therefore on that tank of fuel i have paid £2.50
i fill once every 2 weeks so in my case per year that would be £2.50 x 26= £65 per year tax on a car currently pay £30 a year for.
so if i pounded the roads more often i would end up filling up more often ie if it were once a week i would be paying £130 a year in VED on the fuel.
but the scirocco which goes nowhere and a tank of fuel lasts well over a month especially at this time of year i would pay an awfull lot less in VED because i go longer on one tank.

in the case of my datsun last year i would have paid £2.50 for VED as i filled it up once last year.

[the edmundator]

The point is that the government needs to raise the money to maintain the roads. Hybrids and electric cars may cause less pollution at the point of use, but they still wear out the roads.

If everyone's driving tax-exempt cars, this becomes a problem, so I don't expect these cars to remain tax-exempt in the longer-term.

[scrappy1382]

signed

[DannyH]

Ed you must be the last person in the UK that thinks that the road or fuel taxes have anything to do with maintaining roads?

if they did we'd have the best roads in the world!

i'm all for green economy but not when it's unrealistic, our cars have a negligible carbon footprint as they are so old and most of the footprint in a cars life is in the manufacture.

[Village Idiots]

In total agreement with Danny re carbon footprint.
We are doing the world a favour by keeping our old cars going, particularly if we use them as daily drivers!

[Nate]

I can't see them ever taking it back to 25 year old cars becoming free to tax. When that was originally brought in, suddenly old cars went up in value. It was frozen at a fixed date to stop people who drive old cars (and by that I mean the people who drive clapped out old sheds, as opposed to well looked after enthusiasts cars) getting free tax. The thinking behind it was, I think, largely aimed at trying to get the badly maintained cars to be less popular with a certain type of person.

And personally I don't have a problem with it. Very few people run 49 year old motors because they're a cheap daily hack. But there's still quite a few early 90s cars knocking about that are in a shocking state. They're not classics. They're just abused and neglected end of life vehicles. There wouldn't be a fair way to tax the unloved cars and not the "enthusiast cars"

I think many people forget that driving is a privilege and not an inalienable right.

[eddypeck]

The point of the petition is if it reaches the correct number of signatures then it is a requirement that it's at least discussed in Parliament. It's a way of letting them know what the public think and want. True I doubt it will make any difference but it at least brings the 'request' to their attention.

They've just announced a shake up of VED for new vehicles for 2017 as it appears the penny has finally dropped that all these zero or low emission cars are not not generating them and cash! No Sh!t - well done guys.

The reason it should be 25 years and not 40, was it when it was originally introduced in 2000 I believe it was supposed to be a rolling 25 (at the time I had a 1977 TR7 - great I thought, only had to wait 2 years but it never happened), it never rolled on it was fixed at cars older then 1975. It then took them 15 years to make it rolling, so those original 1975 cars it first applied to are now 40 not 25, which is where the rolling 40 comes from.

[ghost123uk]

^^^ =

[whiteshark]

Eddy Peck, spot on. If it gets raised in Parliament, brilliant. If it gets raised again even better. The power of signatures raises issues and can't be ignored. Made in Dagenham, God bless those ladies. Time for this club to stand up. I'm joking but really should we all be paying a years road tax when most of us are doing limited miles. I love my cars but they have to be driven. To keep them all taxed is a pain in the .........

[the edmundator]

The power of signatures raises issues and can't be ignored.

Tell that to the junior doctors. Several successful petitions, all reaching a parliamentary debate, including one for a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt (which through some constitutional statute they weren't actually able to debate, so debated something vaguely related to the NHS instead).

[Nate]

The reason it should be 25 years and not 40, was it when it was originally introduced in 2000 I believe it was supposed to be a rolling 25 (at the time I had a 1977 TR7 - great I thought, only had to wait 2 years but it never happened), it never rolled on it was fixed at cars older then 1975. It then took them 15 years to make it rolling, so those original 1975 cars it first applied to are now 40 not 25, which is where the rolling 40 comes from.

It was introduced by Ken Clarke under the tories well before 2000, and was then frozen to pre '73 built cars by Gordon Brown in 1998.

As well as the justification I mentioned above, another reason I've seen for the 40 years is that cars last much longer than they used to.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like paying any tax regardless of who is in power (and really don't want this to turn into a political debate), but I don't think the 40 year thing is unreasonable.

[whiteshark]

Jeremy Hunt, rhymes with .........? My other half works in the NHS. Ed I'm with you a 100%.

[the edmundator]

I watched The Last Leg on Channel 4 last night; apparently James Blunt has relinquished his Cockney rhyming slang status.

[eddypeck]

The reason it should be 25 years and not 40, was it when it was originally introduced in 2000 I believe it was supposed to be a rolling 25 (at the time I had a 1977 TR7 - great I thought, only had to wait 2 years but it never happened), it never rolled on it was fixed at cars older then 1975. It then took them 15 years to make it rolling, so those original 1975 cars it first applied to are now 40 not 25, which is where the rolling 40 comes from.

It was introduced by Ken Clarke under the tories well before 2000, and was then frozen to pre '73 built cars by Gordon Brown in 1998.

As well as the justification I mentioned above, another reason I've seen for the 40 years is that cars last much longer than they used to.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like paying any tax regardless of who is in power (and really don't want this to turn into a political debate), but I don't think the 40 year thing is unreasonable.

funny that, I thought it was before 2000... it just didn't feel right when I was typing it..... Oh well, my memory isn't what it once was.. rolling 40 is fine - I'll just have to wait another 10 years for the current car to apply. But no harm in trying