Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

ledow t1_iwr231n wrote

Reply to comment by neverbeaten in UK: Electric car drivers must pay tax from 2025 by nastratin

You tax the energy contained in the fuel they use.

Anything else is dumb and will result in manufacturers trying to cheat the system by having smaller, denser tyres, etc.

You need to tax based on mileage, but you can't do that accurately, but a tax on fuels and electricity etc. are really easy to implement. You literally just add a tax onto the point of sale. Done.

Taxing tyres would be a nightmare of multiple classes of tyres, like classes of engine now, where manufacturers would produce a 184.99999 size tyre because the tax increases at 185 and so on.

Tax the fuel, including electricity for electric cars. If they want to charge at home, they're already paying domestic electricity rates.

More driving? More fuel.

Less efficient engine? More fuel.

Less aerodynamic? More fuel.

Larger weight? More fuel.

Worse driving? More fuel.

And all by saying "10% added tax on fuel or electricity used to charge cars". Done. The paperwork, administration is a significant cost and already in place.

The extra administration of your system, and also every car manufacturer and tyre manufacturer producing all kinds of expensive tyres to get the luxury cars through on lower tax brackets, etc. would outweigh any benefit.

Only a few of those things listed above would have any impact on your tyre wear, and the greatest impacts (pollution, oil usage, etc.) are completely ignored so you'd get highly inefficient and incredibly dirty vehicles (or vehicles JUST UNDER the maximum limit) with the right tyre and be paying almost no road tax.

2

BobbyP27 t1_iwr4ial wrote

When you can simply charge an EV from a domestic electricity supply, actually implementing such a tax system is extremely difficult. It is already a challenge preventing people from using untaxed red diesel in road vehicles, making a system that can work for electric cars will be a whole lot harder.

6

ledow t1_iwr6cnp wrote

That's why you tax electricity.

"Red diesel" is dumb because you expect people not to abuse an untaxed official product.

If you just taxed "all diesel", then offered registered farmers a rebate on their diesel tax receipts, it would actually make FAR MORE SENSE.

Similarly, if you just taxed "all electricity" - which you're already doing, with consumer tax rates on electricity being as high as charging at a service station - they're saving nothing.

The loophole is the people with their own solar power supply capable of fully charging the vehicle. The tax from purchasing which is significant anyway. And it's also encouraging the exact behaviour you want - people to use less oil, less road facilities (e.g. service stations), and generate less pollution.

−2

tomtttttttttttt t1_iwrdd3t wrote

Except that then you are taxing all sorts of electricity usage which simply do not have the same external costs as the air pollution and road wear that cars do.

Car usage needs to be taxed at a much higher level than things like lighting or heating a home.

5

neverbeaten t1_iwr2jic wrote

That concept is ideal if all cars use equally taxed energy. There are always ways to cheat a tax. Charging EVs with untaxed solar would be so simple to rig up.

3

ledow t1_iwr3iks wrote

People installing solar is exactly what you want to encourage, however.

And the people who save any significant amount of tax by doing so would need fields of the damn things to keep up with their own demand.

P.S. As a commercial venture, it wouldn't work as in my scenario I taxed "electricity intended to charge cars". As a private entity, you'd be paying a ton of VAT etc. on the solar panels in the first place.

Plus, powering a car entirely off-grid means far less demand for motorway services, fuel stations, etc. Win-win.

In time, yes, you may have to adjust the rules slightly, of course. But by then the world is an entirely different place.

2

Surur t1_iwrb2lm wrote

> you'd be paying a ton of VAT etc. on the solar panels

Solar panels are either 0% of 5% VAT.

And you can charge an EV from any 3-pin plug overnight at least enough for your daily commute.

2