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Which is precisely the point about the comparison to Income Tax. At the moment, I don't notice the tax I pay on fuel - it's all part of the purchase price when I fill the car. If you separate that out, and then ask for payment separately, you draw attention to it, which will cause people to react against it.
That's the genius of whoever came up with PAYE for Income Tax - for most of us, most of the time, we never see the tax we pay because it's paid for us by employers. My feeling about 20% of my take home being removed is softened massively by my never seeing that tax (compare my emotions there with those when I've had to settle a bill on Self Assessment).
The "obvious" way to do that is to use some form of road tolling, but that raises a raft of other questions that are politically difficult. Turnpike Roads were hated 200 years back; I see no reason why their modern equivalents would go down any better now. The trick will be to find a way of averaging the tax bill so that road users don't notice a difference overall, and aren't suddenly aware of paying tax that they didn't think about before.
This will always be the problem public transport faces. Train and bus fares seem extortionate (and yes, sometimes they are) when the alternative is "free" or at worst "a few quid's worth of petrol"
For generating revenue and economic activity, it's genius.
So I have a 12 year old car which has around 80,000 miles on the clock. It's emissions per km is 139g. The past couple of years I've done around 600 miles per year, but almost 5000 of that is for work in the NHS visiting patients in the community. Under your plan I'd be paying £2900 per year just to do my job!
Unfortunately we don't all have a spare £15-20k to buy a new EV to replace a perfectly functional car. I note you have an EV so it's very 'nice' of you to propose a system where you'd pay nothing.
Double taxation for me. I have a plug in hybrid. It only does a maximum of 37 miles on electric. Haven't got a home charger. Using a public charger is more expensive that running it on petrol.
@KHCT Repeating: illustrative numbers to help make the point. Which is: if it makes you think twice about either replacing that car now, or about what to choose when you next do so, and makes you choose something less polluting, then it will benefit you, your patients and the entire world. I suspect that, when you chose that particular vehicle, emissions were not remotely a factor in your decision. And if something like this makes that a focus, then it will achieve the objective.
In Cardiff, people simply park on the pavement near the shops. Bonus points if they leave too small a gap on the road for the buses to get through. This sort of thing annoys me way more than any concerns about pollution.
Double taxation for me. I have a plug in hybrid. It only does a maximum of 37 miles on electric. Haven't got a home charger. Using a public charger is more expensive that running it on petrol.
Fuel tax is of course already double taxation. It is applied then VAT on top.
This perception, though, is one reason I'm tempted to advocate parking taxation instead. People are used to paying for parking and the tax can be hidden in that. A workplace parking levy can deal with workplaces providing free parking. And as there's no point driving a car somewhere if you can't (or don't want to pay to) park it, it would also encourage the very desirable behaviour of people driving from rural areas where the car is the only option (and so it shouldn't be heavily vice-taxed) parking up at a park and ride or railway station instead of driving all the way into the city.
So I have a 12 year old car which has around 80,000 miles on the clock. It's emissions per km is 139g. The past couple of years I've done around 600 miles per year, but almost 5000 of that is for work in the NHS visiting patients in the community. Under your plan I'd be paying £2900 per year just to do my job
Surely if you are travelling those miles in the course of your job (as opposed to travelling to your job) then those miles should be irrelevant to you as the employer would /should pay (unless you are choosing that option over do thing they would pay for(.
Surely if you are travelling those miles in the course of your job (as opposed to travelling to your job) then those miles should be irrelevant to you as the employer would /should pay (unless you are choosing that option over do thing they would pay for(.
They would presumably just pay a flat per mile amount of the maximum permitted tax free with the employee free to choose what kind of vehicle they use for the purpose.
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Unfortunately we don't all have a spare £15-20k to buy a new EV to replace a perfectly functional car. I note you have an EV so it's very 'nice' of you to propose a system where you'd pay nothing.
There are plenty of used EVs on the market now at significantly less than that, and as the market "populates" they will get cheaper. It is not necessary (indeed it is particularly poor value) to buy brand new cars.
Someone doing a large business mileage will benefit massively from an EV provided they can charge at home as most of the 45p/mile (or whatever it is now) will just go straight in their pocket give or take a tiny amount of tyre and brake lining wear. Or better - MK Hospital provides free (yes, zero cost) EV charging for staff* on the premises, I have a friend who works there and even when not working that day if he needs a charge he goes and charges there rather than doing so at home. Only downside is that it's a slowish charger, but I think he takes his laptop and sits and does stuff while it charges.
* I don't entirely know how this works around benefit in kind rules, perhaps it's actually open to the general public but just well hidden in the corner of the car park or something!
There are plenty of used EVs on the market now at significantly less than that, and as the market "populates" they will get cheaper. It is not necessary (indeed it is particularly poor value) to buy brand new cars.
It is poor value but buying a used EV that has fallen out of warranty is a very expensive lotto ticket with the health of the battery pack, especially with the price of most replacement packs.
For example, a Tesla Model 3/Y battery pack is estimated to be be between 11 and 15000 USD excluding labour
It is poor value but buying a used EV that has fallen out of warranty is a very expensive lotto ticket with the health of the battery pack, especially with the price of most replacement packs.
For example, a Tesla Model 3/Y battery pack is estimated to be be between 11 and 15000 USD excluding labour
I'd suggest reading the EV thread for more discussion of that point but:
1. A failure is very unlikely indeed, far less likely than the failure of an ICE engine requiring replacement or costly full rebuild, e.g. due to a timing belt failure;
2. Most EVs sold legitimately in the UK have an 8 year/100K mile battery warranty (because that was required to be part of the subsidy scheme). MG seems to be one of the few exceptions but...
3. Even were (2) not the case, MG and Kia offer a 7 year warranty on the whole car including the battery.
If you do have a 2nd car you are getting punished a little bit, but those people are likely to have deeper pockets. It's not comparable to poll taxes where everyone pays the same wether it's 10% of your income or 50% of your income.
No but ultimately motor vehicles cost taxpayers huge amounts per mile in damage to roads, and the cost of dealing with fatalities, of which vehicle weight is a factor. They cause pollution of which vehicle weight is a factor, as well as tailpipe emissions, which would be factored in. It makes more sense to tax the actual usage rather than a flat tax for the vehicle whether it's driven a hundred miles or 20,000 miles in a given year.
Pay per mile to work properly (not doing stuff like taxing you for miles done abroad) and not be easily fiddled with, would require a big surveillance infrastructure that would be expensive and politically toxic
Yes I don't have an easy answer for the driving abroad aspect of any pay per mile scheme. Though I'm unsure exactly how many drivers would be affected by this in a significant way. I am sure some technology or even human process can be developed to clock miles on the way out and way back in though if we really wanted to exclude miles driven abroad. It needn't require some insanely expensive surveillance infrastructure all around the country.
It might well be politically unpopular, but then so are cycle lanes in Kensington & Chelsea or abolishing the triple lock on pensions. Doesn't mean they don't need doing though.
@KHCT Repeating: illustrative numbers to help make the point. Which is: if it makes you think twice about either replacing that car now, or about what to choose when you next do so, and makes you choose something less polluting, then it will benefit you, your patients and the entire world. I suspect that, when you chose that particular vehicle, emissions were not remotely a factor in your decision. And if something like this makes that a focus, then it will achieve the objective.
And that is where the political angle needs to be thought about properly. Calibrate that right, and people will take the nudge. Get it wrong, and they'll just go ape over the effective removal of their ability to afford a car - and the policy objective will be damaged not helped.
I think the fairest way is to keep the VED, and to include electric vehicles in it then as ICE vehicles become less, the rate on EV's could be increased to offset the decrease in fuel duty
older /historic cars, should just have a lower band Ved, reflecting their limited use, and in many cases, they are tax exempt this could be replaced with say a £20 band for all cars over 25 years old, and it should be a rolling cut-off date, so modern classics, as they become 25 years, benefits from a lower tax band.
I disagree. Assessing usage on that basis makes the whole scheme significantly more complex, and raises large scale privacy concerns.
A simple flat rate per mile, calculated as an average, would be far better and more enforceable. I'd also go further, and eliminate fuel duty at the same time, to just have a single flat tax. If incentives are required, then the tax rate could be set variably depending on the car efficiency.
To me it seems first though is get in the car - they then do not really factor in difficulty of parking although for many parking is easy (if not legal).
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And the way that fuel duty and VAT (on fuel, repairs, insurance, new cars etc.) works is genius at this. It's paid at a different time to the time of travel, so it makes the act of travel feel like it's free, or an underestimate at best. Ask a lot of people how much it costs to get to the supermarket - most will say zero or not much, or miss the point and say "it's free parking."
This is great for revenue raising and for the economy, not so good if you want to dissuade driving.
Most people do not associate use of a credit card with actually spending money. It is why retailers fall over themselves to accept credit cards even if it means the credit company pays over a month later and takes a cut. So emulating that would be desirable BUT then that makes the cost of usage hidden.
A complex solution would be a monthly bill calculated on :-
Mileage.
Speed limit - more for slower urban (generally) roads.
Weight of vehicle (so a premium for petrol guzzlers and SUVs)
Time done as a UK standard (so as to reduce congestion)
But I would look at removing congestion charges and maybe tolls as a way of sweetening the pill for motorists.
This is fraught as the government no doubt would collect a mileage charge but local authorities tend to collect things like congestion charge.
It is going to difficult to implement technically BUT needs to be simple for a motorist to understand.
As a low user I disagree AND basing it on use would provide an incentive to reduce use but while I pay such high road tax I really feel I might as well use the car more.
The arguments about the relative damage to road is largely irrelevant to the conversation, the road budget is already comfortably covered by VED alone. We should instead think about what raises the most money with the least secondary impact.
Agreed BUT there is a current cost to that same economic activity in people health and safety. By putting a cost on it people can work out alternatives. If more people walked like I do their general health would improve. It is not accident that the NHS wants to provide incentives for people to walk 30 minutes per day.
I am not a health guru or fanatic but I did figure that there were things I could easily do to maintain my health. Fuelled by a reluctance to pay for and got go a gym.
To tax per vehicle is essentially a wealth tax. It won't hurt retail to tax people who own 2 cars for a car they barely use, but it will hurt retail if travel is made more expensive.
We should encourage people to use their car as efficiently (capital wise) as they can, not to buy (largely imported) multiple cars and barely use them
Well there is an environmental cost to each car made and later disposed of.
Wealthy people won't be too concerned about tax on actual use or on tax of ownership. But less well off people will. But is a mileage based tax replaces fual tax it is roughly the same thing and could be costed roughly the same. It is why a bigger heavier vehicle needs to be taxed at a higher mileage rate. That would have happened with fuel tax that an ICE car used if it was a big heavy petrol guzzler.
I am rarely in favour of flat taxes, particularly when it comes to things which are themselves consumption-based.
How a per-mile tax is calculated requires careful thought, but I would think some product of distance driven, weight of vehicle, size of vehicle, emissions of vehicle; would be the way forwards. It can then replace flat taxes like VED, and we can ditch fuel duty as well as it'll be factored in already.
Agreed there are the nuances. The VED (Vehicle Excise Duty) is the bluntest of all taxation methods so any improvement on that would be welcome or neutral to many.
I agree.
Distance.
Weight.
Emmissions (rubber and ICE).
Possibly time of day (UK wise standard)
Possibly type of road (UK wide and based on speed limit) - if we want to discourage town use.
Then get rid of congestion charges.
Perhaps keep a road tav / VED / RFL at a low value just so all cars are "registered".
Pay per mile to work properly (not doing stuff like taxing you for miles done abroad) and not be easily fiddled with, would require a big surveillance infrastructure that would be expensive and politically toxic
I would think any government would just live with the inadequacy of mileage rates being charged on foreign travel. For many it will be a small proportion of their driving (annual car trip to Europe). For a fleet operator of HGVs they already suffer the fact that the fuel they buy in the UK is more expensive - it is why many foreighn HGV operators make sure they fill up before they venture across the channel (I could be out of date on this point).
The alternative is having to pay a mileage based charge to each country visited. It is only unfair if Europe change a very different rate per mile. Kowing Britain we are likely to come up with something vastly different of course.
So I have a 12 year old car which has around 80,000 miles on the clock. It's emissions per km is 139g. The past couple of years I've done around 600 miles per year, but almost 5000 of that is for work in the NHS visiting patients in the community. Under your plan I'd be paying £2900 per year just to do my job!
Unfortunately we don't all have a spare £15-20k to buy a new EV to replace a perfectly functional car. I note you have an EV so it's very 'nice' of you to propose a system where you'd pay nothing.
Well in an ideal world you pay per mile charge will be roughly what you currently pay via fuel tax.
Lets not forget. The reason for the discussion is that fuel tax revenue is bound to be going down because EVs do not use highly taxed fuel. So something usage based to raise money makes sense.
The only way I can see is to increase the VED on electric vehicles, to make it on a par with IC vehicles, based on weight,
There will always be a need for petrol, and to an extent diesel, because the heritage motor industry will still need it, but classic cars do such low milages, that in my view, they should either be tax exempt, or have a low tax band,
the present rules need upgrading, the 25-year rule, needs to run concurrently, not have a 1970'S cut off,
My 2003, MG is now classed as a modern classic, and qualifies for classic insurance, but not tax-free status,
I'm not arguing modern classics should be tax free, but that a new taxation class be introduced for modern classics, with a £25 a year car tax.
The only way I can see is to increase the VED on electric vehicles, to make it on a par with IC vehicles, based on weight,
There will always be a need for petrol, and to an extent diesel, because the heritage motor industry will still need it, but classic cars do such low milages, that in my view, they should either be tax exempt, or have a low tax band,
the present rules need upgrading, the 25-year rule, needs to run concurrently, not have a 1970'S cut off,
My 2003, MG is now classed as a modern classic, and qualifies for classic insurance, but not tax-free status,
I'm not arguing modern classics should be tax free, but that a new taxation class be introduced for modern classics, with a £25 a year car tax.
Rather than paying a flat tax when they're only driven a few hundred miles a year, they're charged per mile. The charge is say a product of miles driven (low), weight (low), size (low), emissions (high). They would overall pay a low rate of tax compared to the blunt instrument of the current VED implementation.
Rather than paying a flat tax when they're only driven a few hundred miles a year, they're charged per mile. The charge is say a product of miles driven (low), weight (low), size (low), emissions (high). They would overall pay a low rate of tax compared to the blunt instrument of the current VED implementation.
I've always thought this - before EVs were a thing I'd just have put it on fuel, but replacing it with a higher mileage charge makes more sense now. Cars sitting doing nothing are not causing harm (unless parked on the pavement, but that's what enforcement is for), it's driving them that causes it.
Rather than paying a flat tax when they're only driven a few hundred miles a year, they're charged per mile. The charge is say a product of miles driven (low), weight (low), size (low), emissions (high). They would overall pay a low rate of tax compared to the blunt instrument of the current VED implementation.
I see what you mean, But under a pay- per -mile Would a heavy EV SUV,( that seems to be the EV of choice) Attract a higher rate of charge, than say a lightweight car?
I see what you mean, But under a pay- per -mile Would a heavy EV SUV,( that seems to be the EV of choice) Attract a higher rate of charge, than say a lightweight car?
I see what you mean, But under a pay- per -mile Would a heavy EV SUV,( that seems to be the EV of choice) Attract a higher rate of charge, than say a lightweight car?
The exact parameters would need modelling to make sure it achieves the policy aims, but in general EVs should, imo, attract a lower rate of tax compared to ICEs. There may be some edge cases, and there may be a discount applied for historic vehicles if we felt it necessary, but in a general sense, that's my position.
The only way I can see is to increase the VED on electric vehicles, to make it on a par with IC vehicles, based on weight,
There will always be a need for petrol, and to an extent diesel, because the heritage motor industry will still need it, but classic cars do such low milages, that in my view, they should either be tax exempt, or have a low tax band,
the present rules need upgrading, the 25-year rule, needs to run concurrently, not have a 1970'S cut off,
My 2003, MG is now classed as a modern classic, and qualifies for classic insurance, but not tax-free status,
I'm not arguing modern classics should be tax free, but that a new taxation class be introduced for modern classics, with a £25 a year car tax.
A rolling tax-free status for classic cars was reintroduced in 2015. However it’s now 40 years instead of the 25 years it was pre 1997 when it was frozen.
Depends on the "why" of it (including as regards how it is "sold" as a scheme). If it's sold on a primarily environmental basis then it matters not where in the world the car is used; it causes the same global damage.
Depends on the "why" of it (including as regards how it is "sold" as a scheme). If it's sold on a primarily environmental basis then it matters not where in the world the car is used; it causes the same global damage.
Yes I have contemplated that it needn't matter where the miles are clocked up really. It depends how much of a factor the emissions and pollution contribute from a policy point of view.
So I have a 12 year old car which has around 80,000 miles on the clock. It's emissions per km is 139g. The past couple of years I've done around 600 miles per year, but almost 5000 of that is for work in the NHS visiting patients in the community. Under your plan I'd be paying £2900 per year just to do my job!
Unfortunately we don't all have a spare £15-20k to buy a new EV to replace a perfectly functional car. I note you have an EV so it's very 'nice' of you to propose a system where you'd pay nothing.
Anyway, there's now E Corsas with sub 70,000 miles on the clock on 21 plates (so at 6,000 miles a year that's more than 4 years of miles) which would give you 3 years of battery warranty for around £8,000 (there's even a few 22 plates).
Even a 5p per mile in fuel savings would be £1,200 in fuel savings, which would make the effective cost sub £7,000:
It is poor value but buying a used EV that has fallen out of warranty is a very expensive lotto ticket with the health of the battery pack, especially with the price of most replacement packs.
For example, a Tesla Model 3/Y battery pack is estimated to be be between 11 and 15000 USD excluding labour
See the above for examples of an EV within Battery Warranty for around £8,000.
Why would most people bother replacing the battery when one could just buy a car within warranty for noticeable less than that cost?
Yes those doing significant milage might, but they are fairly limited in the UK, but then would likely recover a significant percentage of that cost in fuel savings.
For example, a new battery (assuming it's also got a 100,000 mile warranty) if it dies after doing 100,100 miles would recover £5,000 of that cost in a fuel saving of 5p a mile (personally we're getting around 12p a mile compared to our old car, although that will fall with the introduction of the 3p per mile charge).
I would still do it as pay per mile for bigger/heavier cars but at a higher rate. Otherwise once the annual fee is paid there is no incentive to keep usage as low as possible rather than as high as possible.
At the risk of veering back towards the EV thread this was meant to diverge from - I still don't get why it is that, when discussing used EVs (EV "bangernomics"?) some keep banging on about 8 years as if that's a cliff edge when any EV will need an expensive new battery imminently. It appears that there is some conflation between (mandatory) warranty period and an absolute lifespan.
I think that if you do some real research you will find that the far greater probability is for an 8-year old EV battery to continue to work perfectly well for another 8 or more years at least and probably around 20 years before it's unusable. Yes, there are rare exceptions, just as there are instances of conventional engines prematurely dying irreparably. And as I've commented before, just as dead engines can be replaced with rebuilt used items, I have little doubt that battery pack refurbishment will reach sufficient critical mass as to become an industry. The fact it hasn't yet done so, and remains a niche thing, is an indication of both the relative newness of EV Batteries AND of the existing stock's actual real-life reliability. Bear in mind - such batteries hardly ever totally die; as they deteriorate (slowly over many years) they simply reduce capacity (or, to use an analogy, the car's "fuel tank" gets a bit smaller, the older it is).
In the meantime, owing costs for most users will be markedly lower.
Agreed BUT there is a current cost to that same economic activity in people health and safety. By putting a cost on it people can work out alternatives. If more people walked like I do their general health would improve. It is not accident that the NHS wants to provide incentives for people to walk 30 minutes per day.
Rather than base taxes on vauge NHS externalities which for modern cars which are much safer, the NHS should get better at chasing insurance for RTC costs, so careful drivers in safe cars don't end up getting punished the same as someone who chooses a Hummer and has a history of crashes
Car parks yes. In large areas of the country, on street charging is rare. Outside of Greater London and the very centres of large cities and tourist towns, the norm is time-limited free parking. You can even find 2-hour free spaces within a very short walk of Bath city centre. A lot of shopper/short term parking is privately provided by supermarkets and retail parks (sometimes officially as part of a planning condition, where such developments have to let you walk off site into town, and anyway it's very rare for a customer only clause to be enforced)
A workplace parking levy has always existed, in the form of using high value city centre land as a car park.
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