"loopy livernose" wrote
surely the easiest way of fixing this fairly is to put the road tax and
> other premiums onto the cost of fuel, this way, when someone drives a big
> thirsty car (environmental angle) they pay more, as does the "heavy road
> user" it seems to me its a win win situation..
No no no. "Fairly"?? You're missing the point. Within 20 years we'll all be in electric cars anyway, yet the govt relies on motorists to prop up its finances. So the search is for a way to carry on collecting all that lovely hydrocarbon tax, plus the VAT on it that's a tax on a tax, when we're not buying petrol any more.
Solution: charge for the use of roads instead within 10 years, and sweeten it by reducing the tax on something we soon won't be buying anyway. It's a bit like increasing the tax on cigarettes, but arguing that on balance it's "fair" because you're *reducing* the tax on snuff.