Classic Car Road Tax Exemption e-Petition

[Gibbo2286]

Its not daft at all, fuel has gone up 50p/litre in the last couple of years and i have not noticed any riots.
The good thing about putting the tax on fuel is that you dont pay it if you dont use your car, i dont have a great deal of money at the moment so i have not been using my car, at all, just pedal power but im still paying road tax, in fact since cxm i think ive used about £40 of fuel. I believe more revenue could be generated but if times are hard for you it gives greater control over your spending.
I agree about the insurance disc though, a tax disc, especialy when it is all checked electronicaly now, is just stupid in the extreem, an insurance disc is a much better idea.

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Just because it seems like a good idea and would ease your burden doesn't make it any less daft to think that the chancellor is going to give up a publicly accepted even if grudgingly existing tax.

It's not all about you you know such a change would probably be a benefit to me too now I;m retired but think about the guy who has to commute 70 or 100 miles a day to work and back or the small company whose rep does 50k miles a year to keep them in business.

[Deanxm]

That is me, i do 300 miles a week in my van and pay the fuel and tax for that at 24mpg so i would be worse off on the whole, im not thinking of myself at all, its just a fairer way of paying tax for using the roads as thats what the tax is supposed to be, why should you pay more tax if you treated yourself to a V6 to pop to the shops once a week with the wife than i pay to do 15k a year?.

D

[Gibbo2286]

You're dreaming if you think the road tax is for the roads mate, it hasn't been that for fifty years, any more than National Insurance is for the health service and pensions.

It's all for the treasury to spend as it will, it all goes into one big pot.

If they'd spent on the roads all the money they've taken from the motorist over the last sixty years or so we'd have the finest road system in the world and not a pot hole anywhere in sight.

[wotwot]

This one always kicks off a great debate, everyone is right and everyone is wrong thats how the parties want us to be.
Interesting point Gibbo2286 but I'd prefer not having to subsidise those that use the road more than I do.
It would be of benefit for everyone to get more fuel friendly vehicles if road tax went on fuels.
If only the road tax was for the road and the NI was for pensions and health service,its all a big juggling act with our money.

[Deanxm]

Indeed, isnt politics great

D

[wotwot]

It certainly is Dean, especially if your an mp handing in your expenses claim lol.

[Deanxm]

bless em, what would they do if they had to sink or swim in the real world i wonder.

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[wotwot]

Most deffinitely SINK. But its ok the expenses will keep them afloat.
Our local scumbag mp lord hanningfield even tried to claim his fees whilst he was locked up cheeky git !!.

[Deanxm]

It may be true that they have the money but think yourself lucky we got the brains and that we can live our lives safe in the knowledge that we are not complete plonkers.

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[Gibbo2286]

On the point of not wanting to subsidise other road users, does that work for me?

I haven't been on a train for over fifty years (they don't go anywhere I need to go) but my taxes subsidise the trains, especially the trains that London commuters use daily and no doubt the 'London Weighting' they get on their pay.

[CitroJim]

One thing I consider wrong is the tax on DERV over and above that applied to petrol. DERV around here is a full 10p more expensive than petrol and I see this as a deliberate and wholly unfair attempt to gain as much tax as they can from the most commonly used fuel and that used by industry.

fact is that diesel is cheaper by far than petrol to produce. It's a straight fractional distillation from crude and all the refineries have to do is remove any sulphur in it and add a bit of lubricity to replace that taken away by the desulphuration process. It's not that different from heating oil or jet aeroplane fuel... In fact it call comes from the same base stocks. And why is jet fuel duty free? Aeroplanes are there for pleasure - nobody needs to fly them to earn a living except aircrew perhaps... Bung tax on jet fuel and make those that want to fly pay for it. Less then might and that'll do the planet no end of good if all the BS we're told is true...

Petrol on the other hand is a complex product comprising many separately refined additives and needing a lot more careful control to get octane ratings right. It costs a lot more than DERV to produce.

Much fairer and beneficial to the country as a whole would be to reverse the tax and make DERV a lot cheaper than petrol. We'd all benefit..

I guess the differential is there because all those that make the decisions on these things run big, thirsty petrol cars... It's ludicrous to have a fuel that's used almost exclusively for pleasure purposes nowadays more lightly taxed than the fuel used by industry and those earing a living...

As said in this thread so many times, it's just greed...

[Deanxm]

I would imagine its the thing that drives all prices, demand, dont forget that with likes of china and india using an aweful lot of fuel now too its not just us anymore, because everyone jumped on the derv bandwagon demand has gone through the roof and so prices follow, problem is when they are refining so much crude to cope with demand they also have to produce the petrol, they cant just throw it away so they hold the petrol price lower to stimulate its usage. Its not just us being ripped off, diesel and petrol are taxed at the same rate (57p/pl) its just deisel used to be taxed at a lower rate as it was almost exclusivly used by comercial vehicles and machinery, houshold fuel is taxed at 5%.

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[CitroJim]

Thanks Dean for the explanation That makes a lot of sense...

I guess I'd better cut our pollies a bit of slack on that one then

[Deanxm]

dont cut em too much Jim, most dont deserve it .

It makes me chuckle a bit when people moan about fuel prices, we all feel the pinch of modern high energy costs and when BP or similar companies announces they have made £15bn in a year everyone shouts and screams but to run a business of that size, with the massive costs they face in what is an incredibly expensive and cutting edge industry they are probably making a fairly small return on their yearly investment, can you imagine the variables and unknowns in the costs of such a large company? where selling the end product a couple of pence per litre too low could mean the difference between a multi bn profit and a colossal loss . You just cant run a company of that size too close to the wind.

I know its a rough world but not everyone out there wants to fleece us, unless they live in brussels

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[wotwot]

Nice one Dean but I cant remember last time I heard of a fuel company making a loss though,even with bp having to cap their disaster at sea did they make a loss !!??.But it is always the same whom ever is in power the poorer are always worst hit.
Most of those on the low end of the earnings scale will not have had a pay rise in years.
No matter what system is in place to tax a vehicle or insure it there will always be some trying to avoid it,at least at the pump it cant be avoided except those that drive off without paying of course.And it should go back to tax breaks for commercial use.