> Armitt said the debate around road pricing would only grow as the government steadily lost revenue on its two main motoring taxes – vehicle excise duty and fuel duty, which together raise about £35bn a year. Neither are levied on electric vehicles.
I can’t think of an alternative, to be fair. The people who use the roads really should pay for their upkeep.
nate390 on
It’s not like they haven’t already figured out how to tax EVs.
Just yesterday a letter dropped through the door from the DVLA telling me my EV will be subject to road tax from 2025.
Public EV chargers are taxed at 20% and domestic electricity continues to be taxed at 5%.
essex-not-me on
Not going to be very popular with rural population and others outside of London for whom public transport is something they see in London on TV.
PurahsHero on
This is unpopular as hell, and there obviously needs to be investment in making alternatives more accessible and cheaper, but in the long run to keep what we have going this will be needed.
The current 20% on electricity for charging EVs will not even come close to filling the black hole in the public finances. The cost of infrastructure upgrades and new railways, bus networks, and tram systems will be astronomical, as will the bill just to keep what we have going and stopping climate change from wrecking our infrastructure.
Personally, I would go for progressively higher taxation on EV charging as EVs become more widespread. Ring fence that cash and plow it into improving buses, trains, trams, bike infrastructure and walking routes, as well as keeping what infrastructure we have going. None of this siphoning it off to pay for some random other project.
The problem is this is necessary but politically suicidal. Who would take on the controversy of a national road user charging scheme whose benefits are 2 to 3 Parliament’s away?
XenorVernix on
Clearly they will need to do something to replace the taxes on petrol and diesel if everyone went electric but my concern is they would replace it with something that is taxed even more.
Pay per mile is the fairest method as that’s essentially how it currently works since you buy more fuel if you drive more miles.
But no doubt they will go overboard with tolls on motorways instead that end up costing the average driver more than we pay in fuel duty tax now. I could also see them hammering owners of ICE vehicle twice with both taxes at the same time.
Alarmed_Inflation196 on
Government: we tax things with expensive externalities to discourage you
Public: ok we’ve stopped
Government: great but we still want to charge you
Public: ?!?!
noobtik on
If taxing gonna improve road condition, im happy for it
TinFish77 on
Labour are going to be in serious electoral trouble if the very rich get away with it again.
Taxation on the essentials of life is really just income tax by any other name. Won’t be an essential you say? What with the vast sums being spent on public transport and how good it’s soon going to be…
bodrules on
Be interesting to work out how much you pay per mile now via fuel duty and VAT, then compare it to the various proposed rates.
Mclarenrob2 on
15 minute cities incoming, nobody will be able to afford to go anywhere
LloydAtkinson on
lol these people calling themselves tsars like it’s soviet russia
Mistakenjelly on
How very socialist of them, punish the poorest and most disenfranchised members of the population by pricing them into further into abject poverty.
bateau_du_gateau on
Remind me who elected this guy and why we are supposed to call him “sir”?
MrZeeMan79 on
Didn’t the government just give millions away to another country to fix their roads?
14 Comments
> Armitt said the debate around road pricing would only grow as the government steadily lost revenue on its two main motoring taxes – vehicle excise duty and fuel duty, which together raise about £35bn a year. Neither are levied on electric vehicles.
I can’t think of an alternative, to be fair. The people who use the roads really should pay for their upkeep.
It’s not like they haven’t already figured out how to tax EVs.
Just yesterday a letter dropped through the door from the DVLA telling me my EV will be subject to road tax from 2025.
Public EV chargers are taxed at 20% and domestic electricity continues to be taxed at 5%.
Not going to be very popular with rural population and others outside of London for whom public transport is something they see in London on TV.
This is unpopular as hell, and there obviously needs to be investment in making alternatives more accessible and cheaper, but in the long run to keep what we have going this will be needed.
The current 20% on electricity for charging EVs will not even come close to filling the black hole in the public finances. The cost of infrastructure upgrades and new railways, bus networks, and tram systems will be astronomical, as will the bill just to keep what we have going and stopping climate change from wrecking our infrastructure.
Personally, I would go for progressively higher taxation on EV charging as EVs become more widespread. Ring fence that cash and plow it into improving buses, trains, trams, bike infrastructure and walking routes, as well as keeping what infrastructure we have going. None of this siphoning it off to pay for some random other project.
The problem is this is necessary but politically suicidal. Who would take on the controversy of a national road user charging scheme whose benefits are 2 to 3 Parliament’s away?
Clearly they will need to do something to replace the taxes on petrol and diesel if everyone went electric but my concern is they would replace it with something that is taxed even more.
Pay per mile is the fairest method as that’s essentially how it currently works since you buy more fuel if you drive more miles.
But no doubt they will go overboard with tolls on motorways instead that end up costing the average driver more than we pay in fuel duty tax now. I could also see them hammering owners of ICE vehicle twice with both taxes at the same time.
Government: we tax things with expensive externalities to discourage you
Public: ok we’ve stopped
Government: great but we still want to charge you
Public: ?!?!
If taxing gonna improve road condition, im happy for it
Labour are going to be in serious electoral trouble if the very rich get away with it again.
Taxation on the essentials of life is really just income tax by any other name. Won’t be an essential you say? What with the vast sums being spent on public transport and how good it’s soon going to be…
Be interesting to work out how much you pay per mile now via fuel duty and VAT, then compare it to the various proposed rates.
15 minute cities incoming, nobody will be able to afford to go anywhere
lol these people calling themselves tsars like it’s soviet russia
How very socialist of them, punish the poorest and most disenfranchised members of the population by pricing them into further into abject poverty.
Remind me who elected this guy and why we are supposed to call him “sir”?
Didn’t the government just give millions away to another country to fix their roads?