VAT increase on public chargers

[pgkevet]

Yes we need to move to road pricing so those who do the miles pay the tax. Not those who don't have a drive

So how will road pricing work? Tollbooths everywhere? A gov app costing billions that doesn't work? GPS trackers in every car?.. which means retrofitting all older cars with some fancy meter (that won't work just like smart meter fiasco). Remember it takes about 12 years to cycle all the car stock and folk will hang on to older cars longer if cheaper and that has an effect on consumerism. App related and there'll be fraud everywhere. Prepay your guesstimate mileage and then adjust annually - more fraud?
Simplest answer is no driveway - use the bus or buy a bike. Oh, hang on.. won't be a problem with the fleet of cheap robotaxis that Elon promised would be running at the end of last year...

At the moment only 1.1% cars UK are EV so not really a gov priority...

 

[Cardo]

So how will road pricing work? Tollbooths everywhere? A gov app costing billions that doesn't work? GPS trackers in every car?.. which means retrofitting all older cars with some fancy meter (that won't work just like smart meter fiasco). Remember it takes about 12 years to cycle all the car stock and folk will hang on to older cars longer if cheaper and that has an effect on consumerism. App related and there'll be fraud everywhere. Prepay your guesstimate mileage and then adjust annually - more fraud?
Simplest answer is no driveway - use the bus or buy a bike. Oh, hang on.. won't be a problem with the fleet of cheap robotaxis that Elon promised would be running at the end of last year...

At the moment only 1.1% cars UK are EV so not really a gov priority...

ANPR. Already used for congestion charging and ULEZ in London, as well as Dartford Tunnel and all those private car parks. The technology is already there, and the cameras are already in place.

 

[Jason71]

So how will road pricing work? Tollbooths everywhere? A gov app costing billions that doesn't work? GPS trackers in every car?.. which means retrofitting all older cars with some fancy meter (that won't work just like smart meter fiasco). Remember it takes about 12 years to cycle all the car stock and folk will hang on to older cars longer if cheaper and that has an effect on consumerism. App related and there'll be fraud everywhere. Prepay your guesstimate mileage and then adjust annually - more fraud?
Simplest answer is no driveway - use the bus or buy a bike. Oh, hang on.. won't be a problem with the fleet of cheap robotaxis that Elon promised would be running at the end of last year...

At the moment only 1.1% cars UK are EV so not really a gov priority...

public transport is fine in cities as are bikes but I assume your bus suggestion was a joke since you live in rural Wales where you need a calendar not a timetable in some areas?

I don't think anyone disagrees that the govt needs to tax transport. Fuel duty has worked up to now since it taxes those who do the most miles / drive the most inefficient vehicles the most money. We need a new way to tax in the EV era that will do the same. but how do you tax fuel when 50% of people have their own personal fuel pump. If most charging is done at home or work you could never tax public charging enough to make a dent in the current fuel duty revenue. So by taxing it more you are just hurting the less well off and discouraging them from adopting EV's. There is currently a negative financial incentive for anyone without a drive who does not have a company car to get an EV (grant does not come close to levelling up the price at present). This just makes it worse.

As for road pricing. Depends how you want to do it but it seems like the only practical solution unless you are going to log all electricity put into an EV from any source and bill for that. So in answer to some of your questions.
Toll booths? Clearly not
Black boxes in cars? Maybe. Insurance companies have been doing it for years
Just charging by the mile? All cars already record this. yes I know this is open to fraud via clocking. not sure what you do about that except spot checks
ANPR. Fine if you want to just charge or charge higher rates on trunk roads.

 

[MrBadger]

Then they'll just do every electron...

That would make the comparative political fallout from introducing road time and use pricing a non event.

 

[pgkevet]

public transport is fine in cities as are bikes but I assume your bus suggestion was a joke since you live in rural Wales where you need a calendar not a timetable in some areas?

The one thing we have got is driveways. No street lighting, police, dentists, buses, cheap rate leccy or mobile signals and t'internet is by semaphore. Shank's pony or Tractor..

As for road pricing. Depends how you want to do it but it seems like the only practical solution unless you are going to log all electricity put into an EV from any source and bill for that. So in answer to some of your questions.
Toll booths? Clearly not
Black boxes in cars? Maybe. Insurance companies have been doing it for years
Just charging by the mile? All cars already record this. yes I know this is open to fraud via clocking. not sure what you do about that except spot checks
ANPR. Fine if you want to just charge or charge higher rates on trunk roads.

Exactly - you need a practical solution. APNR rurally? They'd have to fix the infrastructure first and everyone would use the backways but fotunately local councils have seeded them with potholes as a deterrent.

But gov likes to waste money so likely will do it and then see the error. It'd be cheaper just to load the annual road fund licence. If I had my way I'd stick a £2 ta on anthing in a takeaway container to help reduce litter and pay for roads that way instead of the cr@p I have to pick up from the roadside fields...

 

[Adopado]

Hmm.. what happens on free electricity, such as Tesco?

20% of zero is ... zero!

 

[Adopado]

If I had my way I'd stick a £2 ta on anthing in a takeaway container to help reduce litter and pay for roads that way instead of the cr@p I have to pick up from the roadside fields...

I feel your pain! Alternatively local farmers could be supplemented with a "sniper bonus" when they pick off a litter dropper! This payment could come from the estate of the deceased with a suitable percentage going to the government for roads etc. Probably a bit drastic but ....

 

[Jason71]

The one thing we have got is driveways. No street lighting, police, dentists, buses, cheap rate leccy or mobile signals and t'internet is by semaphore. Shank's pony or Tractor..

Exactly - you need a practical solution. APNR rurally? They'd have to fix the infrastructure first and everyone would use the backways but fotunately local councils have seeded them with potholes as a deterrent.

But gov likes to waste money so likely will do it and then see the error. It'd be cheaper just to load the annual road fund licence. If I had my way I'd stick a £2 ta on anthing in a takeaway container to help reduce litter and pay for roads that way instead of the cr@p I have to pick up from the roadside fields...

Its good that you have driveways because you have sod all Rapid public chargers. When you look on Zap Map Mid Wales is like the land that electricity forgot.

"Road Fund licence" or Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) to give it its proper name is not the answer. Whatever we do has to be linked to mileage / amount of fuel consumed. If you tried to re-coup the current fuel duty via VED You would have to make it massive and those who did very few miles would be subsidising the people who did a lot. So it would price low mileage users out of the market and reward people who do a lot. Exactly the opposite of what we need

 

[btc1k]

Its good that you have driveways because you have sod all Rapid public chargers. When you look on Zap Map Mid Wales is like the land that electricity forgot.

"Road Fund licence" or Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) to give it its proper name is not the answer. Whatever we do has to be linked to mileage / amount of fuel consumed. If you tried to re-coup the current fuel duty via VED You would have to make it massive and those who did very few miles would be subsidising the people who did a lot. So it would price low mileage users out of the market and reward people who do a lot. Exactly the opposite of what we need

UK GOV have commissioned papers on the solutions and a number are with the treasury.

Road pricing will happen - question of when.

I envisage it will be some kind of GPS box solution in the car. The tech is well established.

Then additional verification layers via ANPR and annual MoT's, etc.

 

[Jason71]

UK GOV have commissioned papers on the solutions and a number are with the treasury.

Road pricing will happen - question of when.

I envisage it will be some kind of GPS box solution in the car. The tech is well established.

Then additional verification layers via ANPR and annual MoT's, etc.

I tend to agree

 

[pgkevet]

There are estimates of between 1 and 2 million uninsured drivers UK. At least fuel duty gets something from (them unless they drive on red or heating oil).
The numbers without MOT are likely worse and presumably they don't pay VED (when I was a wee laddie t'was RFL).. I'm sure they can figure out a way to screen any GPS antenna. Yes, I'm harsh but as a percentage these are more likely to be without a driveway and shouldn't be on the road at all.

 

[Jason71]

There are estimates of between 1 and 2 million uninsured drivers UK. At least fuel duty gets something from (them unless they drive on red or heating oil).
The numbers without MOT are likely worse and presumably they don't pay VED (when I was a wee laddie t'was RFL).. I'm sure they can figure out a way to screen any GPS antenna. Yes, I'm harsh but as a percentage these are more likely to be without a driveway and shouldn't be on the road at all.

On the contrary your views are relatively progressive for a 90+ year old ( RFL was the official term for the tax disc from 1920 to 1936).
You are correct it is not possible to pay VED if you don't have an MOT. But, fun fact, you can Pay it without having insurance if you are so inclined and don't live in Northern Ireland.
No one really likes the idea of road pricing including politicians, and I agree with most of what you say about the potential problems with trying to implement it. but given that fuel duty as we know it is going to go the way of the dinosaur (juice) we need a method of progressive taxation to replace it capable of generating similar levels of revenue. VED and taxing public charging are just not going to cut it since they are not progressive enough and both shift the burden of taxation away from fuel duties laser focus on the people who do the most miles in the least efficient vehicles.

 

[pgkevet]

I don't see any road pricing system that isn't going to cost silly public money to create and be full of holes. and just be another job creation excercise. You want to deal with least efficient vehicles? Stick a huge sales tax on the big engined jobbies and crush anything more than, say, 8-10 years old.
It's the same wrong approach gov has to speeding. If you want to stop it then put a 75mph limiter on all new cars and bring in speed sign recognition adjusting that limiter ASAP (or a gizmo in the road).

 

[MrBadger]

I use to work for an organisation that have input into Government policy. They have been involved in researching road time and use pricing. Whilst I was not involved in this, I have some, admittedly potentially stale insight from a knowledge sharing session. The chap giving the session was directly involved in researching various road time and use options.

At the time, possibly 5 years ago, the system that seemed to be most favoured was described as being similar to the toll passes you get in foreign roads, except detectable by satellite. I don't have any experience of these sorts of passes, other than it was described as being placed in the windscreen area. I guess that toll systems use more localised methods of detection rather than satellite.

However, from other work at this organisation, I am also aware of other systems that can do a very similar tasks, albeit using signals from users personal equipment rather than any official transponder mounted in a vehicle. These use Bluetooth technology and can detect the presence of people or vehicles from phones, watches or other bluetooth devices on the users person or built into a vehicle. A dedicated transponder using similar technology would be very cheap and as easy to deploy as the old tax disc. I have a random google search of such a system - Bluetooth Pedestrian and Vehicle Tracking - MHC Traffic Ltd - professional traffic data collection service Part of my groups area was traffic signal infrastructure - it would be trivial to deploy localised detection systems relatively inexpensively.

The thing with road time and use pricing is that you do not actually have to track vehicles which greatly reduces complexity (allowing easy retro fitting of fairly passive devices) and reduces the impact on privacy. One of the aims of the time and use charging is to charge for vehicle use on the busiest roads at the busiest times. A vehicle taking little used roads is likely to have little effect on congestion. The busiest and most congested roads are likely to already have infrastructure in place that can be adapted to use for vehicle detection. It is the vehicles presence at a location and what time that is the key input - it travelling from A to B or A to C is of little importance. If location A is congested at the time the vehicle is detected, that is the basis of the charge. If B is similarly busy, but C is not, then the vehicle is charged for being part of congestion at A and B, but only A and not C. If someone wants to pootle around the country lanes to reduce their charge by not being detected so frequently, then so be it, the system will have more congested areas to be monitoring. But thats just my interpretation.

 

[Jason71]

I don't see any road pricing system that isn't going to cost silly public money to create and be full of holes. and just be another job creation excercise. You want to deal with least efficient vehicles? Stick a huge sales tax on the big engined jobbies and crush anything more than, say, 8-10 years old.
It's the same wrong approach gov has to speeding. If you want to stop it then put a 75mph limiter on all new cars and bring in speed sign recognition adjusting that limiter ASAP (or a gizmo in the road).

They tried that. Its called First Licence VED. currently sits at £2225 on the cars with over 255g/km of CO2. Didn't work. turns out people who can afford a V8 Range Rover don't give a damn ( who knew) and most cars are PCP or company anyway so the user never really notices it. Should have been higher.
but even if it was FL VED + higher VED, Plus taxing public charging + crushing 10 year old cars ( with their owners inside presumably) AND summary execution of anyone without off street parking are still not even combined a fit for purpose replacement for fuel duty so if you don't like the idea of road pricing ( and again who does) or think it impractical ( certainly has its issues) then what are you suggesting as an alternative that will replace the £28 billion ( + VAT?) that the govt gets from Fuel duty?

 

[GRiLLA]

Maybe don't tax clean transport at all? We're moving into a brave new world of electric vehicles, lots of things need to change. A road based tax is complex to implement, and I'm not really sure why it's considered 'fair' that people who need to travel more pay more. Make public transport free while you are at it.

Sure there's going to be a loss to the exchequer, but no reason that needs to come back onto transport out of habit. How about maintaining a global rate of corporation tax to avoid massive corporations that avoid tax or increase income tax.

 

[pgkevet]

They tried that. Its called First Licence VED. currently sits at £2225 on the cars with over 255g/km of CO2. Didn't work. turns out people who can afford a V8 Range Rover don't give a damn ( who knew) and most cars are PCP or company anyway so the user never really notices it. Should have been higher.
but even if it was FL VED + higher VED, Plus taxing public charging + crushing 10 year old cars ( with their owners inside presumably) AND summary execution of anyone without off street parking are still not even combined a fit for purpose replacement for fuel duty so if you don't like the idea of road pricing ( and again who does) or think it impractical ( certainly has its issues) then what are you suggesting as an alternative that will replace the £28 billion ( + VAT?) that the govt gets from Fuel duty?

I guess the 28 billion is 2/3 trucks and lorries so a mere 10 billion to find. As @GRiLLA rightly says doesnt have to come from road transport and he's also right that free public transport would go a long way to solving issues. £10Billion was spent on the covid app so you could get most of it back by shaking loose those brown envelopes...
We risk getting too political here but the whole approach of measuring economic success by GDP is crazy. The only real measure is external trade balance and used up resources (minerals. oils, etc)
To bring in something like GPS based road pricing you need every car connected which either means everyone has to cough up for another cell connection (or it's in the price of the car) and you need total cell coverage. The sanest thing is to get people off the roads and indeed get bulk transport off the roads but much of that got destroyed by Beeching and 'just in time' manufacture and the crazy nonsense of wanting everything yesterday.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

ANPR. Already used for congestion charging and ULEZ in London, as well as Dartford Tunnel and all those private car parks. The technology is already there, and the cameras are already in place.

Or you take readings of the mileometer/odometer.
You already have a unique vehicle identifier and a regulated device measuring distance traveled.
Not perfect, but road pricing using fuel is also a really crap way of pricing roads.

The sooner governments make a decision on this, the sooner tech goes into new vehicles to simplify getting a reading.

 

[kriscii]

Sure there's going to be a loss to the exchequer, but no reason that needs to come back onto transport out of habit. How about maintaining a global rate of corporation tax to avoid massive corporations that avoid tax or increase income tax.

Isn't this where this thread started with some companies having to pay more VAT so putting the prices up. If you fill the hole left by fuel taxes disappearing by taxing all corporations more, they will only end up raising their prices, so we end up paying for it another way. The only positive is that people who walk or bikes or those lucky enough to have public transport that is frequent and cheap could then pay for the roads as well

 

[pgkevet]

... The only positive is that people who walk or bikes or those lucky enough to have public transport that is frequent and cheap could then pay for the roads as well

Nor do you get a reduction in NI contributions if you have private health cover or send your kids to private school or not have kids. The concept of folk paying for services they don't use is well established. One of the greatest nonsenses is a minimum wage folk can't live on so they get social welfare - effectively subsidising the employer.