The simple, completely fair and common sense way to deal with road tax is to abolish it and add the road tax duty to the cost of fuel. Ok before you scream and shout remember we are already paying tax on fuel, and yet the government still hits us with road tax, just think of all the advantages?.
- It's completely fair, you will pay an exact proportionate amount depending on how much you use your car and therefore how much you use the roads. Why should an OAP who pops to the shops once a week pay the same as a sales rep doing 100,000 miles a year?
- It?s environmentally friendly, if your car is not well maintained, or you have a large car that uses more fuel then again you pay an exact proportionate amount depending on how efficient your car is and not on how big the engine is. It would also help to encourage more environmentally friendly driving styles.
- Huge administration cost savings (millions of pounds), have you ever thought how much it costs to administer road tax, all the millions of reminders that need to be sent, letters, postage, road tax discs, post office charges, police costs to enforce the tax, etc...
- Completely stops any road tax evasion, you use a car, you have to buy fuel and so you pay road tax, that simple! Not only that but people visiting this country and using the roads would also contribute, thus increasing the number of people contributing and helping to keep the increase on petrol prices to a minimum.
- Congestion charges, well with road tax on fuel you will proportionally pay more tax when driving at peak times (i.e. rush hour) and on congested roads (e.g. in London) as you?ll use more fuel, conversely you will proportionally pay less when driving during quieter periods (e.g. at night) and on roads that are less congested.
- Overall saving, with all the savings made by the abolishment of road tax, less of a tax on fuel would only be needed to recover the same amount of net revenue.
- And instead of having to display road tax, surely it's far more important to have to display a valid MOT and certificate of insurance, this also wouldn't cost anymore either as both the MOT & Insurance certificate could include a tear off section that you display in your windscreen.
I honestly can't think of any negative points to this idea, only for Political reasons has this not been introduced as the politicians are scared of not being reelected, again policies are determined by votes and not by what actually works and is fair.
