Quote:
Originally Posted by Nidge41
People aren't filling their cars up like they used to do hence the low income from fuel duty. The days where people filled up on a Friday are long long gone, they only put enough in now to last them.
Come on David (call me Dave) Cameron we're in this together.
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The motorist has been a cash cow for many years - unfortunately for the exchequer, we have now reached the point at which people no longer fill the tank and, the car being a necessity, simply grit their teeth and pay up (or worse, not even think about the vast size of the bill they've just run up).
People now have to think about how they are using their cars, and use them less. We reached that point in our household a good few years ago, which is tricky given that we live pretty much in the middle of nowhere and have no local public transport. Careful planning of online purchases to get maximum benefit from minimum delivery charges has become a real skill around here.
Regarding road tolls however, I don't think that's very likely. Unleaded petrol benefited from lower duty than four star when it first came out, in order to encourage people to buy cars that could use it. Now four star has gone, all we have left is duty on unleaded and nothing to compare it with. I'm quite sure that in the years that followed, the duty has gone up by more than enough to cover the loss to the exchequer of not getting the extra from four star sales any more.
The same will happen with road tax. As fewer cars fall into the higher price bands, the low VED and zero-VED vehicles will have their rates gradually increased. Eventually high-VED cars will all be gone and the VED on the rest will continue to go up in order to cover the loss. Governments can always think up a pretext for changing the tax regime. My guess is that they will say they need eco cars to pay their fair share for maintaining the infrastructure, which they make equal use of whether or not they pollute while they do it.
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