I had a conversation last night about road tax. My argument was that it should be scrapped and put on the price of fuel. If you work out an average person does say 12000 miles a year and you want a revenue of £200 for that person then 200/12000 - 1.6p per mile. If you work it out that an average car would do around 25mpg then that works out at 25 x £0.016 = £0.42 per gallon increase.
Does this not make sense? You'd therefore only be paying for what you used. I only do around 4 or 5000 miles and I begrudge paying the same road tax as someone that does 30,000 miles. It'd also be in your interest to have a more economical vehicle.
If you think about it there'd be no administration charges for the DVLA and there'd be no tax dodgers cause they'd be paying for it with their fuel.
Now I realise that there will be some of you that will be annoyed at what I've just proposed because you do big miles and have an uneconomical vehicle but surely you can see that it makes sense to pay for what you use?
A few examples of what road tax you'd end up paying. Based on 25mpg and an increase of 42p per gallon.
5000 miles = £84
10000 miles = £168
15000 miles = £252
20000 miles = £336
25000 miles = £420
30000 miles = £504
Now obviously, diesel vehicles generally give you better mpg figures so you could have a separate rate for diesel fuel. Say a diesel vehicle does 35 mpg then that would equate to 1.6p per mile x 35 = 58p per gallon increase. Making the annual rate of:
5000 miles = £82.80
10000 miles = £165.70
15000 miles = £248.57
20000 miles = £331.40
25000 miles = £414.20
30000 miles = £497.14
What do you think folks?
Does this not make sense? You'd therefore only be paying for what you used. I only do around 4 or 5000 miles and I begrudge paying the same road tax as someone that does 30,000 miles. It'd also be in your interest to have a more economical vehicle.
If you think about it there'd be no administration charges for the DVLA and there'd be no tax dodgers cause they'd be paying for it with their fuel.
Now I realise that there will be some of you that will be annoyed at what I've just proposed because you do big miles and have an uneconomical vehicle but surely you can see that it makes sense to pay for what you use?
A few examples of what road tax you'd end up paying. Based on 25mpg and an increase of 42p per gallon.
5000 miles = £84
10000 miles = £168
15000 miles = £252
20000 miles = £336
25000 miles = £420
30000 miles = £504
Now obviously, diesel vehicles generally give you better mpg figures so you could have a separate rate for diesel fuel. Say a diesel vehicle does 35 mpg then that would equate to 1.6p per mile x 35 = 58p per gallon increase. Making the annual rate of:
5000 miles = £82.80
10000 miles = £165.70
15000 miles = £248.57
20000 miles = £331.40
25000 miles = £414.20
30000 miles = £497.14
What do you think folks?