Soon to be on sale, cheap?

[poprivet]

Won't be needing these much longer.

http://www.jec.org.uk/shop/60901/club-a ... older.html



I hope the club hasn't a lot of stock left

[dhdove]

Hmmmmm I'm not convinced....some info here....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25223631

We all know about the introduction of new electronic systems in all walks of life, generally ranging from poor to disastrous.
Given the Governments record on new electronic and computer systems I predict a very expensive failure....

....we'll see

TonyS

[CliveRothwell]

I read it's supposed to be done by monthly direct debit and would cost 5% than a full year.

It's a pity we can't pay for what we actually use because for the life of me, I can't drive more than one car at once!

[BigCatXJS]

On-line service = good

Re-engineering a redundant process = bad

Why did they bother? It would have made more sense to adopt a pay as your drive approach by adding a penny or two to the price of a litre of fuel. The savings from not having a separate Tax Disc / Electronic disc service could have been spent on the NHS or something more "Front-line".

Rich.

[ptjs1]

Absolutely agree, Rich.

How do we stop people driving their car on the road and evade paying road tax? Simple - Transfer the principle to fuel costs then no-one who drives can evade it (unless they steal the fuel!). Then those who use more fuel and drive more miles pay more "road tax" and those who use the roads less pay less "road tax".

Whilst we're doing that why don't we also fit ANPR cameras at all petrol stations, link them to the pumps and stop anyone without MoT or insurance from putting fuel in their car. We could also report the results and photos to the police for prosecution? That might take 99% of the uninsured cars off the road immediately! ..or am I looking at this too logically?

Paul

[Equalizer]

Everyone agrees with scrapping road tax and adding it to fuel. Everyone except the dumbo's in charge. But then they have their departments and jobs to justify.....

[oldtimer]

Excellent idea, couldn't agree more , bin saying it for years

BUT,

If a hundred Gallons of fuel is delivered to the forecourt and then it is sold in one gallon increments the last person in the queue will not get any or very little.

The government takes a huge slice in tax off each Gallon.

The Tanker driver delivers a hundred gallons which you sign for

The government wants a hundred slices of tax but you haven't sold a hundred gallons.

So who pays the shortfall

And so the argument starts!

[piman]

Hello Equaliser,

"Everyone agrees with scrapping road tax and adding it to fuel."

Do they, well here is one that does not.

We pay well over the odds in duty and to add insult to injury VAT is then charged on top of that. Fuel cost is a significant burden on those who live in rural areas where pay is generally lower and public transport is not an option for the majority. It adds to the general; cost of living and rural businesses that use very large amounts of fuel will have their overall transport costs increased.

I'm all for scrapping the road fund licence, full stop.

Alec

[oldtimer]

Good point Piman,

The other side of the coin

[Equalizer]

I think road tax is a mile away from its origins and that in itself cause confusion. If it was originally a 'road fund licence' with the aims of building and improving the highways, I am pretty certain that has long been forgotten and it is merely another income stream to the already over-large state in the UK.

Personally and politically I would prefer small, very small, almost insignificant government and likewise with tax. I fully agree with the principal that fines punish wrongdoers and taxes punish success. But my personal and political views aside, and much as I agree with sentiments above in that I'd rather see NO taxes, I think we have to accept that really we will be paying some sort of tax for the foreseeable future to drive our cars. Accepting the current way of things as established fact and unlikely to alter soon, it becomes a matter of the best and fairest way of collecting it.

In the past the road tax was based on vehicle engine size. With increasing 'green' pressures it is now based on emission levels. We have moved away from collecting revenue to build roads and into punishment/reward scheme for choosing more or less environmentally challenging travel options. Again, regardless of opinion if this is right or wrong, this is a fact.

As we have gone down this path, then really any levy added to fuel is the cheapest and simplest option - taxed at source. It also by default automatically 'punishes' those with high fuel consumption or higher polluting vehicles as they will be through choice using more fuel and paying more tax. 'Rewards' for lighter users or users of less polluting vehicles would also be by default using less fuel and paying less tax.

Couple this with the drastic reduction in labour and time across government departments issuing, verifying and printing/posting silly little discs, Police time in prosecuting non-payers (which would be impossible under fuel tax - no pay, no go!), etc. and the State would increase actual revenue massively.

Whilst not perfect, it would certainly be much fairer than the current system, far less bureaucratic and far simpler to administer. It may or may not increase costs for rural users, that would be down to each user to decide upon having worked out the amount of fuel used and the savings accrued from not having to pay tax under the current system. I do not have the figures or the data to work out what the increase would be, but scrapping the current system and the savings in bureaucracy may mean a fuel tax would only add pennies to the current litre price. It may even work out that users of many vehicles even save money, who knows?!

But in principle, duty added to fuel re-balanced to cover for the scrapping of the road fund licence as it is now is and accepting the fact we will have to pay some sort of tax, isn't that a better solution?

If it is not, then what is a fairer way without suggesting a scrapping of the tax altogether which whilst everyone I am sure would agree with, is very unlikely to ever happen. Taxes are rarely repealed, only re-packaged.

[CliveRothwell]

Equalizer sums up the situation very clearly. It seems that many government policies are decided on what will / will not lose votes. The simple option to further tax fuel used whilst being popular with most motorists will alienate those who live and work in rural communities. The communities do tend to be held by Conservative MPs and as such, the government I guess would not want to lose voters on this arguement. I suspect that they have done all the meddling that they think they can get away with and are unlikely now to make further changes. Pity.

[poprivet]

This threads gone a bit off target, but here's some more info:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes

Without a disc, common sense would suggest that the licence could run from any date, not the beginning of the month rather like insurance does. That could actually make a lot of sense when buying or selling a vehicle. As long as it has an MOT, pay for the car, buy the licence on line and drive away. The seller gets any portion of unused tax returned automatically.

Now, what to put in place of the disc. How about a copy of the vehicles first disc when new, or a Guiness label like my dad used to do, get rid of the holder completely or maybe the club can produce a nice round sticker to suit. Any other ideas?

[CliveRothwell]

Yes, I was wondering what to put in place of the tax disc and initially came up with the same idea: an original from when new. I then also thought of a "for sale" sale and then a small printed statement along the lines of " Well it's in the post officer, but you can't nab me now 'cos I don't have to display it any longer!"

I'll be pleased to see it go

[regl7]

5% is cheap as most monthly DDs like BT line rental charge huge amounts for credit (over £50 on top of one off fee of £141) - but people seem to pay monthly.

Full month refunds and paying for whole of start month just adds up to more tax collected/less refunded.

could have a club badge with reg and paid amount like current disc and membership expiry in the date style 280215. Would need to be similar but not too similiar - would help run down stock of holders too