That old chestnut ...

[Michael Macclan]

David Hansen wrote:
>
> You have demonstrated that your claim is wrong. In this excerpt the Inland Revenue bunch do indeed
> call Vehicle Excise Duty, Vehicle Excise Duty and not Road Tax as you claimed.
>
> However, for the intellectually challenged they do once refer to it as road tax. Personally I
> wouldn't bother doing so, but I gain no points for political correctness.

Sorry, being intellectually challenged compared to you (I assume this is what you're implying) I
fail to understand how I have demonstrated that my claim is wrong. They refer to it as road tax, you
admit that. It doesn't matter if they do so once or a thousand times and that they also call it VED,
the fact is that they feel a need to refer to it as road tax. If they really wanted to re-educate
people they wouldn't do this. Or they could at least write, "formerly known as road tax."
--
Michael MacClancy

 

[Tim Woodall]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 22:00:55 +0000, David Hansen <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 19 Feb 2003 18:31:29 GMT someone who may be [email protected]
> (wafflycathcsdirtycatlitter) wrote this:-
>
>>The roads are paid out of general taxation.
>
> And that was largely the case even when there was a Road Fund. At the most it paid half the cost
> of *improvements* to "roads of national importance".
>
I'm not a historian but I understood that the Road fund licence was introduced in order to pay for
roads for the exclusive use of motorvehicles (AKA motorways).

All the other roads have always been paid for out of general taxation, just now the tax payer picks
up the tab for the motorways as well although it appears that that might be starting to change again
with roads like the Birmingham relief road (23miles, 700million GBP, but there will be a toll)

It would be interesting to know how much the construction/maintainance of motorways costs. New
motorway building has been dramatically cut back over the last few years or so and I wouldn't be
surprised if currently the "road tax" actually exceeded the amount spent on motorways.

Quick back of envelope calculation (based on 23 miles costs 700m)

1991/92 187km completed motorway and trunk road = 3.5bn

average 1991-1999 2.4bn

average 1999-2002 0.5bn

(based on lane KM these come out lower - I assume the the Bham road is 6 lanes)

1992/92 2.3bn

average 1991-1999 1.7bn average 1999-2002 0.4bn

This does include trunk roads, I don't have figures for just motorways and I don't have any figures
for road maintenance either.

(I have used figures for roads completed rather than roads commenced)

Regards,

Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

 

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 11:24:06 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be Tim Woodall <[email protected]>
wrote this:-

>I'm not a historian but I understood that the Road fund licence was introduced in order to pay for
>roads for the exclusive use of motorvehicles (AKA motorways).

Roads for the exclusive use of motor vehicles became a live issue (to the road lobby) in the mid to
late 1930s. They had two visits to see what that nice Mr ****** was doing in Germany. They pressed
for money to be diverted from military spending and spent on roads instead.

The Road Fund was created somewhat earlier and was being wound up as pressure for motorways started.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

 

[Guy Chapman]

"Michael MacClancy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...

> As I tried to explain, my belief is that it's been in the government's interest to allow this
> misconception to continue for a long time. (Just as they'd have you think that National Insurance
> is insurance and not just another tax.) The change in name from Road Fund Licence to Vehicle
> Excise Duty is very recent and done, I believe, only when people started to realise that the
> government wasn't spending the road tax on roads!

Until very recently the taxes and duties levied on road transport came nowhere near covering the
directly attributable costs of roads. In the last few years with increases in fuel duty, more cars
on the road, and (until last year) reduced spending on new road building, we finally got to a point
where the taxes were (according to which end of the estimates you take) either approximately
covering the costs, or only falling short by a thousand or so per car per year.

But all the roads in Britain were built to some degree or other with money out of the general
taxation pot. The Road Fund only ever covered (from memory) about a third of the cost of any road.

And even if this were not the case, we should not be surprised. Nobody seriously expects tobacco
duty to be spent on building new newsagents' shops, or alcohol duty to be used to build more pubs.