VAT on fuel - are we being ripped off?

[spindrift]

In short, Yes. We're having our pants pulled down royally - The probem is that we stood for it during the good times and now we're up the creek we can guess what the answer will be to a decrease in fuel taxation.

 

Just how true is this perception that motorists are so unfairly taxed?

 

 

Well in the financial year 2006-07 £28.43bn was raised from taxes on fuel and Vehicle Excise Duty (VED).

 

 

In the same year around £8.78bn went toward maintenance and £11.91bn new road building, but that is not the whole story.

 

 

The cost of policing the roads and the expense incurred by the judicial system has been estimated to be £3bn.

 

Also, the cost to the NHS of injuries due to road accidents crashes, according to figures from collated by RoSPA, was £9.93bn.

So the total cost to government was £33.62bn, meaning there was a short fall of £5.19bn, which had to be covered from other non-motoring related taxation.

 

In addition there is the cost to businesses and other drivers due to delays caused by congestion, estimated by those rampant greens, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), to be about £19.1bn.

 

Even this does not cover the whole cost of motoring to the nation as a whole, there are a large raft of hidden costs borne by all UK tax payers, these include -

 

* Noise pollution: in the form of lowered house prices, spoilt semi-natural areas, ill-health and disturbed sleep, estimated to cost £3.1bn

 

* Air pollution (not including CO2): estimated to be between £8.5 billion and £20.2 billion a year and this is likely to be an under-estimate! When looking at the costs associated with global warming, the figures are more difficult to pin down, but have the potential to dwarf our entire economic system. Transport contributes about 23% of UK domestic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and road transport is responsible for 93% of this.

 

* Water pollution: in the form of run-off into rivers and drainage of leaking oil, break fluid, exhaust and soot from vehicles, rubber particulates from tyres and salt used in winter. Again estimated costs are uncertain, but are somewhere between £1bn and £16bn per year.

 

* Costs to health due to lack of exercise: the British population is one of the fattest in Europe. The direct cost of obesity to the NHS is £0.5bn per year, the indirect health impacts of physical inactivity, estimated to be £10.7 billion per annum, and on top of that the indirect cost to the UK economy is at least £2bn per year.

 

* Insurance: Car insurance is a competitive business. Figures released by the Association of British Insurers show that the payouts to road users were not covered by their premiums. The average shortfall for the five years from 1988 to 1992 was £626 million per year. In other words, insurance companies are charging more on other kinds of insurance to subsidise motorists.

 

* The cost of repairing pavements damaged by illegal parking: this has been estimated to cost in the region of £234m a year and that does not include the cost of policing, installing bollards and other devices to stop vehicles parking illegally or the cost of compensation claims for trips and falls caused by this damage.

 

The simple inconvenient fact is that it is 18% cheaper to run a car now than twenty years ago.

 

This shows that “the motorist”, far from being unfairly taxed, is being heavily subsidised by the non-motoring tax payers.

 

 

So it is motorists that are the free loaders on Britain’s roads, not the long suffering cyclists and pedestrians.

[m500pks]

Not only are we paying a tax on a tax (VAT on fuel duty), but we are paying a tax on a tax on a tax, as these charges are taken once Income Tax and National Insurance have been deducted !

[Conrod]

So it is motorists that are the free loaders on Britain’s roads, not the long suffering cyclists and pedestrians.

Some interesting figures, and some virtually grasped from thin air, but you seem to forget that most of the maintenance to the roads is required to support heavy vehicle use and (rather conveniently) exclude the business profits and taxation income to the government as a result of all of the commerce that cannot take place without the roads.

 

That pretty much adds up to be the GDP - so let's forget all the silly random figures you have for tthings like noise and pollution. The roads make the government far more money than they cost.

 

 

But take an individual motorist. Buys a reasonably cheap car every 3 years say - and loses about £3000 in vehicle tax and VAT. £1000 a year. Pays £200 ish a year in road tax. Pays insurance tax. Pays VAT on maintenance and servicing, annual service won't come in at less than £250. That's £1250 plus a year so far in tax without driving a mile.

 

Travels, say, 15000 miles a year at 30mpg, using 500 galons of fuel - that adds up to about £1853 in tax at current rates, so that driver pays at least £3100 tax to the government, every year. Or about 21p per mile - in tax alone.

How much is that one motorist costing the government in exchange for £3100in tax each year?

 

 

And how much do cyclists pay in road tax and insurance these days - or are they just freeloaders who are allowed free use of the roads paid for by motorists?

[spindrift]

The roads make the government far more money than they cost.

 

 

It's the other way round.

 

Work it out yourself, the total cost to government for the external costs of motoring was £33.62bn, meaning there was a short fall of £5.19bn, which had to be covered from other non-motoring related taxation.

 

Motorists are freeloaders, and "Road Tax hasn't existed for 73 years.

 

There is and has never been a war on the motorist. Motorists are handled more gently than anyone else: they are the only people who can expect to get away with breaking the law on almost all occasions. A war is an event in which people are injured and killed. Which circumstance most closely resembles one: an occasional £60 fine, or the daily carnage on the roads?

 

You can see the victims of the real war that's being waged – the war against road safety – in every hospital and mortuary up and down the land.

 

Seven killed, 71 seriously injured, every day.

 

About 120 children killed in Britain every year: 120 families plunged into lifelong grief.

 

 

When someone is killed or injured as a result of careless driving, the penalties are tiny, if there is any punishment at all. As a result, motorists are able to take space – and even life – away from people pursuing other activities:

 

 

One of the more stupid statements made by motorists to cyclists is “you don’t pay tax”, sadly this is just not true. We all pay tax, as the old axiom has it: there are two things in life which are unavoidable, death and taxes. However, when challenged on this point, they go on to say that they alone pay something called “road tax”, and that the payment of this gives them a greater right to use the roads than anyone else.

 

 

Again this is not true, here in the UK there is no such thing as “road tax”, there used to be a form of tax called the “Road Fund Licence”, but as I have pointed out elsewhere, this was abolished in 1936! We all pay for the roads through our taxes, so effectively we all pay “road tax”.

 

 

Despite this, there is a widespread perception among the more ignorant motorists that they are somehow unfairly taxed, unlike those free loading cyclists and pedestrians who dare to use their roads.

[Conrod]

It's the other way round. Work it out yourself, the total cost to government for the external costs of motoring was £33.62bn, meaning there was a short fall of £5.19bn, which had to be covered from other non-motoring related taxation.

As I said above, you added up just about every loosely-related cost you can think of, but deliberately refuse to include the revenue from business and commerce that results from road transport.

Motorists are freeloaders, and "Road Tax hasn't existed for 73 years.

We call it something else now, but we still have it. It’s something motorists pay to be permitted to use the road – cyclists don’t pay it.

About 120 children killed in Britain every year: 120 families plunged into lifelong grief.

When someone is killed or injured as a result of careless driving, the penalties are tiny, if there is any punishment at all. As a result, motorists are able to take space – and even life – away from people pursuing other activities.

Just as with any other innocent accident, the law does not look to penalise people disproportionately. If people are playing rugby and a player’s neck is broken accidentally, should the other players all be charged with murder and locked away for ever? Or should that case, like a motoring accident, be treated as an accident? (And 120 child deaths a year is not worth considering statistically out of the tens of millions of people and cars on our roads – it shows how incredibly safe British roads are).

One of the more stupid statements made by motorists to cyclists is “you don’t pay tax”, sadly this is just not true. We all pay tax, as the old axiom has it: there are two things in life which are unavoidable, death and taxes. However, when challenged on this point, they go on to say that they alone pay something called “road tax”, and that the payment of this gives them a greater right to use the roads than anyone else.

Yes, that’s because they have to pay it in order to legally use the road. You may not like the way it works, but that’s UK law.

And if you claim that cyclists shouldn’t have to pay road tax because they pay other taxes – surely the same logic must apply to motorists – they pay lots of other taxes too – have you included those in your sums? Of course not.

Again this is not true, here in the UK there is no such thing as “road tax”, there used to be a form of tax called the “Road Fund Licence”, but as I have pointed out elsewhere, this was abolished in 1936! We all pay for the roads through our taxes, so effectively we all pay “road tax”.

Be as pedantic as you want, we pay duty to put something widely referred to as a tax disk on our cars – to prove that we have paid a tax, whatever you want to argue over naming it.

Despite this, there is a widespread perception among the more ignorant motorists that they are somehow unfairly taxed, unlike those free loading cyclists and pedestrians who dare to use their roads.

As for the ‘unfair tax’, please answer the question in my last post about how much that typical car driver personally costs the government in exchange for his £3100 a year in taxes to use his car.

[spindrift]

Just as with any other innocent accident, the law does not look to penalise people disproportionately. .

 

You think this is proportionate?

 

A failed asylum seeker who left a young girl dying under the wheels of his car after a hit-and-run accident has been freed to the disgust of her family.

 

Aso Mohammed Ibrahim was due to be deported after his applications for asylum and citizenship were kicked out.

 

But the 31-year-old Iraqi Kurd has been released on bail from custody while he makes yet another appeal to stay in the UK. He says it is too dangerous for him to return to his homeland.

 

The father of 12-year-old Amy Houston, who was mowed down by Ibrahim's Rover car as she went to the shops more than five years ago, has spoken of his outrage.

 

Paul Houston, 39, an engineer, said: 'It's an insult to my daughter. I walk around the street and I'm looking over my shoulder every two minutes thinking, "Am I going to see this bloke?"

 

'How many more appeals does he get? It is my duty as a father to see this through to the end.

 

'If I didn't fight then another person would find themselves in this position and I don't want anybody else's kid to get killed. He's just laughing at the British justice system. It is so wrong.'

 

Weeks before the fatal accident, Ibrahim, who was living in Blackburn, had been banned for nine months for driving while disqualified, without insurance and without a licence. He has never held one.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1175014/Asylum-seeker-killed-girl-12-hit-run-walks-free-despite-judge-recommending-deportation.html#ixzz1ASp5fhts

 

 

VED or "road tax" (road tax was in fact abolished in the 1930s) does NOT pay for roads, it pays for everything from the NHS to the army, navy and nuclear weapons. Most roads, at least the ones in towns and cities, are paid for by council tax, not by motorists so cyclists, pedestrians, public transport etc etc all have as much right to the road as motorists.

 

1. Taxation On Motorists Is A Very Small Part Of The Taxes We All Pay.

 

We all pay tax. We pay it on the money we earn, on the VAT rated goods we buy, and the alcohol and cigarettes we consume. Then there is local taxation and national insurance payments made by both employers and employees. Money from petrol and other taxation on motorists is a very small part of this overall taxation burden.

 

If we did not pay tax we would not have money for hospitals, schools, police forces and emergency services, social services, armed forces… As the Prime Minister said:

 

"It's easy for campaigners to put up signs outside garages saying so much goes to the Treasury. But you don't hear them talking about putting up signs outside hospitals saying the numbers of nurses and doctors will have to be cut because the government doesn't have enough money" (News of the World 2nd July)

 

Consider other protests:

 

A Dump the (Beer) Pumps protest at local pubs. The RAC may protest that petrol is taxed more than champagne, but the proportion of tax on motoring as a whole is far lower than the Alcohol Excise Duty charged on your pint of beer. Since some people are calling for revenue from petrol tax to be spent on public transport and other alternatives to cars, why not call for the money derived from taxation on beer to subsidise soft drinks? Or just give it "back to the drinker" by subsidising nicer pubs.

 

A Dump Income Tax protest from employees. At least 20% of our income - or one day a week for most people in work - is paid in income tax. This is the same sort of proportion (and far more in sum for most workers) as taxation from motoring - which is far less desirable and much more damaging to society and the environment than working.

 

A Dump the Shelves protest at DIY stores. Remember that 17.5% VAT you pay when you buy some timber to put up shelves at home?

 

2. Motorists Do Not Pay Their Way.

 

The external costs of motoring have been calculated by Government appointed economists like David Pearce as well below the amount of the taxes that they pay. In 1994, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution published a report which concluded by saying the price of petrol would have to double to reflect roughly the true cost of motoring.

 

In "The Real Costs of Motoring" (August 1996) published by The Environmental Transport Association, (01932 828882, 10 Church Street, Weybridge, KT13 8RS. http://www.eta.co.uk) the costs (in £billions) of road damage and congestion, the impact of air pollution on health, climate change (global warming), noise, and of accidents not paid for by those involved are calculated as follows:

Income £ External costs £

Vehicle excise duty

Fuel taxes

 

3.6

12.5

Road damage

Congestion

Air pollution

Climate change

Noise

Accidents

 

1.5

17.5

19.7

0.1

2.6

9.4

TOTALS 16.1 50.8

 

Of course, there are problems with putting costs on human life and the environment The economists who wrote "The True Costs of Road Transport", David Maddison, David Pearce et al (Earthscan, 1996), which forms the basis for the ETA and other such reports, have been criticised for this approach and minimising the impact of motoring on human beings and the environment.

 

Even if monetary calculation is the best way of considering this issue, public health costs could be considered: The British Medical Association publication "Road Transport & Health", Sept '97 noted that a reduction in motor traffic "could lead to a broad range of health benefits". The health problems associated with the lack of exercise with which motoring is implicated - stroke, heart disease, obesity - are far greater problems in terms of life years lost than those from "road traffic accidents". Putting these costs on to the balance sheet would increase the estimate for 2000 to above the £2,000 per year deficit of the average motorist. Even more unquantifiable, but none the les real, costs such as the restriction on childrens' mobility by motor traffic danger could be added on.

 

And on top of paying for those costs, there could still be grounds for taxation on motoring as there is on, for example, VAT rated goods.

 

3. Motorists Have Not "Paid For The Road".

 

There is a dangerous myth that motorists have "paid for the road". In the 1920s Winston Churchill pointed out that it would be ludicrous for the so-called "Road Tax" that motorists pay - now Vehicle Excise Duty - to come back to services for motorists such as road building: "It will be only a step from this for them to claim in a few years the moral ownership of the roads their contributions have created". The idea that motorists have a special right to the roads above cyclists, pedestrians or public transport users because of spending a few pounds a week is a significant obstacle to real road safety in this country. It links in with the other myth about motorists "paying their way" and should be vigorously opposed by those in Government with responsibility for road safety. It is also crucially important for the success of Controlled Parking Zones - very often introduced to protect motorists ability to park conveniently - to point out that motorists have not "paid for the road".

 

4. Are Motorists Paying Enough?

 

If motorists have not paid for the road or the costs they incur on the rest of society and the environment, there is a case for increasing the costs of motoring through congestion charging, workplace taxes and fuel increases, as well as other forms of taxation - or what might be properly called "subsidy reclamation". Increasing costs could:

 

Encourage consideration by motorists of other forms of travel

 

Encourage purchase of more fuel efficient cars

 

Provide revenue to be used to support alternatives to car-dependency

 

Provide revenue as an alternative to other forms of taxation: income tax, VAT, National Insurance contributions etc.

 

Better reflect the costs incurred by motorists as against other transport mode users, who are effectively discriminated against at present

 

The costs of motoring are the same as they were in the 1970s. They went down in the 1980s - their rise is simply up to the level it was at some 25 years ago. In that time average incomes have gone up by 2 to 3 times. In terms of the average income, motoring has become very much cheaper.

 

 

http://www.rdrf.org/freepubs/pumpup.htm

[spindrift]

While average disposable income over the past 25 years has massively increased, the cost of driving in real terms has remained unchanged.

 

Bus fares, by contrast, have risen by 87 per cent and train fares by 53 per cent. Our train journeys are now the most expensive on earth, costing some three times more per mile than the Spanish or Italians pay.

 

British drivers are charged more for their fuel than motorists elsewhere, but they don't pay road tolls.

 

The truth is that Britain's vehicles are massively subsidised by those of us who don't own one.

 

 

 

You're 100 percent wrong when you say "to use the road, you must pay tax...etc." A car in VED Band A can drive around on roads without paying a penny in 'road tax'. VED is a tax on emissions, it's not a fee to use roads.

 

Motorists have been filmed attacking cyclists for “not paying road tax” yet there are no known cases of motorists attacking farmers for the same perceived ‘crime’. And nor do motorists attack band A cars, disabled drivers, the Royal family, or other “road tax dodgers” out there, of which there are millions.

 

By any yardstick you use, motoring taxes have fallen.

 

The costs of motoring are the same as they were in the 1970s.

 

 

They went down in the 1980s - their rise is simply up to the level it was at some 25 years ago. In that time average incomes have gone up by 2 to 3 times. In terms of the average income, motoring has become very much cheaper.

[retrogo]

Some interesting figures, and some virtually grasped from thin air, but you seem to forget that most of the maintenance to the roads is required to support heavy vehicle use and (rather conveniently) exclude the business profits and taxation income to the government as a result of all of the commerce that cannot take place without the roads.

 

That pretty much adds up to be the GDP - so let's forget all the silly random figures you have for tthings like noise and pollution. The roads make the government far more money than they cost.

 

 

But take an individual motorist. Buys a reasonably cheap car every 3 years say - and loses about £3000 in vehicle tax and VAT. £1000 a year. Pays £200 ish a year in road tax. Pays insurance tax. Pays VAT on maintenance and servicing, annual service won't come in at less than £250. That's £1250 plus a year so far in tax without driving a mile.

 

Travels, say, 15000 miles a year at 30mpg, using 500 galons of fuel - that adds up to about £1853 in tax at current rates, so that driver pays at least £3100 tax to the government, every year. Or about 21p per mile - in tax alone.

How much is that one motorist costing the government in exchange for £3100in tax each year?

 

 

And how much do cyclists pay in road tax and insurance these days - or are they just freeloaders who are allowed free use of the roads paid for by motorists?

 

Here, here,

 

and the daft fkrs where cycling in the snow Friday morning.

[alchemist]

Despite this, there is a widespread perception among the more ignorant motorists that they are somehow unfairly taxed, unlike those free loading cyclists and pedestrians who dare to use their roads.

 

So, to cut out all the waffle what your are saying is that cyclists should be charged to use the roads?

[retrogo]

So, to cut out all the waffle what your are saying is that cyclists should be charged to use the roads?

 

I think all cyclists should do the road safety test, and have third party insurance. cyclists in the past have undured pedestrians with their stupidoty, just as car drivers do.