Thieving scumbags

[Lawrence]

But what if you're someone like me who sometimes only uses the bike a couple of times a month? I might only ride it for eg 30 days in a year, but I have to keep it taxed for the other 335 days.

It would be fairer and cheaper (for me) to only pay tax on the petrol I use. YMMV (quite literally!)

I use mine every day and do 20k+ per year.  It's fairer and cheaper (for me) to pay tax based on engine size.

You can't please everyone   10p/litre would cost me ~£20/month so I vote to keep it how it is.

[AndyL]

[quote author=Grahamm link=topic=11884.msg131333#msg131333 date=1393850538]
But what if you're someone like me who sometimes only uses the bike a couple of times a month? I might only ride it for eg 30 days in a year, but I have to keep it taxed for the other 335 days.

It would be fairer and cheaper (for me) to only pay tax on the petrol I use. YMMV (quite literally!)

I use mine every day and do 20k+ per year.  It's fairer and cheaper (for me) to pay tax based on engine size.

You can't please everyone   10p/litre would cost me ~£20/month so I vote to keep it how it is.
[/quote]
It's not fairer for you to pay based on engine size, it's cheaper. To be honest I don't think there can be a completely fair way of doing it.


Personally I think it should be based on amount used but if you assume that it should be linked to road wear then you doing 20k a year on a bike is a lot less wear then a car with a similar MPG so it still wouldn't be fair on bikes, if you wanted to look at pollution caused then it could only be fair if you also taxed new vehicles based on pollution caused when making them in the first place (this could also apply to spares). That would bump be very telling.


I think one advantage of the tax the fuel argument is that it more more simple and so cheaper to maintain

[Lawrence]

It is fairer, we both have a 600cc bike that's allowed to use the road so we pay the same. I already pay 80p/litre in duty and tax so tax based on emissions is covered.

Realistically it's never going to be canned. They might add 10p/litre to fuel but why take off the VED fee?  People will still pay it because they have to.

[BBROWN1664]

:agree

[Grahamm]

I use mine every day and do 20k+ per year.  It's fairer and cheaper (for me) to pay tax based on engine size.

You can't please everyone   10p/litre would cost me ~£20/month so I vote to keep it how it is.

Cheaper, yes, but fairer? Why should I pay the same VED as you? And, more to the point, why should both of us pay VED when there are cars with bigger engines and which take up more space than both of us which are exempt?

[Lawrence]

Because your vehicle is the same size, uses the same amount of road space and causes the same wear/tear as mine. For every mile we do at 45 mpg we pay about 8p tax/duty. Over 20k I'll pay £1600 (tax/duty only, excluding the cost if the actual fuel), if you only do 2k you'll pay £160.