Tax coming for EV’s

Grantanow

Perfectly sensible to tax EV users. They use the roads which need maintenance and their cars are usually heavier so cause more road wear.

Happy to pay per mile, but there is no evidence that EVs cause more damage to roads, much as the fossil fuel industry would like people to believe it. Regenerative braking is much gentler than using a brake pedal.
The real damage is caused by heavy goods vehicles; petrol tankers would be one example.

Grantanow

Perfectly sensible to tax EV users. They use the roads which need maintenance and their cars are usually heavier so cause more road wear.

But obfuscating the purpose of a tax which was supposed to encourage people to change to low emission vehicles just muddies the waters, and, I think, causes division. I would quite understand that people would be annoyed that my petrol car pays only £26 pa VED when its emissions must be higher than those of an EV.

There is no need for government to pretend that the VED is hypothecated for road maintenance. Tax revenue flows, which are irregular, don't even mesh with that pretence.

Do the government pretend that, MaizieD? Or is it just what people think?

Historically, VED was hypothecated (earmarked) specifically for road construction and maintenance; however, this practice ended in 1937, and all proceeds since then have gone into the general government budget.

One visible effect of that is the poor state of our roads.

Government money management, as we are endlessly told on GN is not like household money management.

E.g. at home, if you earmark money for a desperately needed toilet replacement
you don't siphon money out of that for other causes, leaving the toilet situation to further deteriorate.
The government does exactly that with the roads.

Historically, VED was hypothecated (earmarked) specifically for road construction and maintenance; however, this practice ended in 1937, and all proceeds since then have gone into the general government budget.

Which just goes to show how extremely difficult it is to eradicate misconceptions and 'folk memories'.

I apologise for wrongly attributing the perceived purpose of VED, road maintenance, to government 'pretence'. Always nice to know that one will be jumped on from a great height for saying something inaccurate.

But it is being discussed on this thread as though it were true.

Of course, the other 'folk belief' that is in daily evidence is that taxes fund spending.

Always nice to know that one will be jumped on from a great height for saying something inaccurate.
🤣🤣🤣
I learnt that strategy from the experts in its usage on GN, who use it for anything inaccurate in their perception.
Sadly, it wasn’t a great height. as I suffer from Acrophobia.