Road Tax Collection

Road Tax - well, it's not an outrage in itself, not at all. My gripe is with the method via which it's collected. And even that isn't an outrage. But what is, in my mind, a bit outrageous, is the way that governments have never publicly stated the reasons why they collect it so inefficiently and inequitably. But, to be fair, the UK government has always collected it in the same way, and so have presumably all other governments, and nobody's ever whinged about it, so perhaps I'm alone in thinking this way.

The government knows how much total revenue it obtains per annum from Road Tax. Presumably it also knows how much total revenue it ought to be obtaining per annum from Road Tax, if the tax dodgers paid up too.

And the government also knows how much total revenue it obtains per annum from vehicle fuel tax. So it knows how many litres of car fuel are sold per annum.

So let's assign some symbols as follows:

A = Total revenue per annum that ought to be obtained from road tax
B = Litres of car fuel sold per annum

If Road Tax were scrapped, and vehicle fuel tax were increased by A/B per litre, then

• Everybody would pay it, nobody would be able to dodge it
  

• It would be fair - the more miles you drove, the more you'd pay, the more efficient your vehicle was, the less you'd pay

Of course, we'd also need a separate system for registering vehicles, but that would involve a nominal charge, or no charge at all, so there would be no disincentive to registering. And we already have that system in place - it's the system that we currently use for collecting Road Tax.

Yes, I know, there'd be exceptions such as agricultural vehicles and electrical vehicles, but methods can be found for dealing with such exceptions.

Now the government doesn't do this 'cos (I presume) industry would have a hissy fit about it. The average person, driving 10000 miles per annum in his privately owned/taxed/insured car, would gain (slightly). And the company car driver and the lorry driver would lose. And governments always do what industry wants.

Now here, at long last, is my gripe. They don't tell us why they do it inefficiently and unfairly. They should do it efficiently and fairly, or they should come clean about it.

It's An Outrage!!