Which UK political party is better for the motorist?

Soldato
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Why not just do the MOST sensible thing, and cut all fuel duty and VED to a minimum, and bring back ring fencing of the money so that 100% of road tax is spent on ROADS (and only roads, and bridges etc, none of the money going on cycle paths, rail, public transport). 100% of VED is invested or given out as subsidies for alternative fuels.
 
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Why not just do the MOST sensible thing, and cut all fuel duty and VED to a minimum, and bring back ring fencing of the money so that 100% of road tax is spent on ROADS (and only roads, and bridges etc, none of the money going on cycle paths, rail, public transport). 100% of VED is invested or given out as subsidies for alternative fuels.

Because there are genuine external costs in addition to roadbuilding that should be internalised via taxation?

Of course, the taxes are still both too high and not ringfenced to take that into account, but it is true.
 
Soldato
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Because Rypt, if you do that there won't be enough to plug the huge gaps created in just about everything else.

So you either increase income tax, or company tax, or you cut unneeded spending and services.

What we need is a FAIR taxation system, that supports only key things that the government should provide, not a socialist government that taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes and then waste even more money than it can tax.


Because there are genuine external costs in addition to roadbuilding that should be internalised via taxation?

Of course, the taxes are still both too high and not ringfenced to take that into account, but it is true.
What is the genuine external cost to you travelling by road? Other than some of the money going towards NHS, police, fire?
 
Soldato
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I can't think of any tax that is ring fenced anyway. I'm sure there are bits where taxes intended for a certain purpose spill over into other areas to plug the gaps.

It's just the way it is. Motorists are taxed because they are an easy target.

I don't agree with taxing motoring because it's pretty much a necessity these days to have a car. It's like levying a huge tax on food, or air.

Smoking/alcohol I don't care so much about because they are luxuries. A car isn't anymore.
 
Soldato
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Considering the mess the Countries in and that most green taxes start in Europe voting purely for motoring issues probably wont work.

It will, the party with the best idea for Motoring are UKIP ... who are also the party with an idea as to what to do to Europe (which is tell them to frak off and then simply be in a trading bloc with them)



The point I'm trying to make though Tute is that I feel that duties (such as VED and fuel duty, and alcohol etc duty) should all be ring-fenced and only spent on things that the activity damages or requires (so NHS, police, fire, roads, etc)
This should apply to ALL duties.

So NI should be 100% spent on NI issues, such as state pensions etc.

All other government spending should come from VAT, Income Tax, Company tax.

This would make a much fairer tax system, as activities would fund themselves (and if the government needs to encourage a certain activity it can do so via subsidies from the "other spending" budget).
 
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Man of Honour
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What is the genuine external cost to you travelling by road? Other than some of the money going towards NHS, police, fire?

Even if you ignore climate change, there is pollution impact from the use of petrol or diesel. There is also a reduction in safety associated with road transport which is only partly internalised via insurance, requirements of enforcing reasonable laws, and so on.

I fully argue that taxation needs massive reform in this country, I especially oppose the use of non-ringfenced sin taxes as a means to raise revenue. Unfortunately, all these things require a greater reduction in public spending than the public will tolerate. We're going to have enough spending cuts already thanks to labour's overspending of the last 10 years+
 
Soldato
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I'm confused by what you mean by reduction in safety.

Fuel Duty can more than cover pollution issues and alternative fuels.
VED can then be used to cover police, ambulance, road building.

In fact, VED may need to go up a bit, while Fuel Duty drops as VED has to cover more than Fuel Duty (fuel duty only should cover issues caused by burning fuel, VED should cover issues due to driving a car).
This way, when we have 100% renewable sources of energy for car, we can scrap fuel duty as there is no longer a need for it.



As for over-spending and cuts, we need to save 150bn a year compared to now ... I fail to see how this is such a hard job, as you can easily save £15bn within the NHS, 30bn within Work and Pensions, 15bn within Defence, money within Scottish government (ie removing devolution and the extra layer it adds), and so on.
 
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I fail to see how this is such a hard job, as you can easily save £15bn within the NHS, 30bn within Work and Pensions, 15bn within Defence, money within Scottish government (ie removing devolution and the extra layer it adds), and so on.

I find it so hard to take you seriously. Does anyone else have this problem?
 
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I'm confused by what you mean by reduction in safety.

The presence of the private car creates an additional safety hazard.

Fuel Duty can more than cover pollution issues and alternative fuels.
VED can then be used to cover police, ambulance, road building.

In fact, VED may need to go up a bit, while Fuel Duty drops as VED has to cover more than Fuel Duty (fuel duty only should cover issues caused by burning fuel, VED should cover issues due to driving a car).
This way, when we have 100% renewable sources of energy for car, we can scrap fuel duty as there is no longer a need for it.

Works for me, although VED only needs to cover a small amount of police and ambulance cover, namely that attributed to the presence of the type of motorvehicle being taxed.

As for over-spending and cuts, we need to save 150bn a year compared to now ... I fail to see how this is such a hard job, as you can easily save £15bn within the NHS, 30bn within Work and Pensions, 15bn within Defence, money within Scottish government (ie removing devolution and the extra layer it adds), and so on.

Because there's politics and economics involved, and your idea fails to recognise the effect of either...
 
Soldato
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NHS budget is >100bn, are you telling me that the NHS is more than 75% efficient?
Work and Pensions (Social Protection) budget is 130bn, are you telling me that it is more than 75% efficient?
Defence wise we spend almost twice per Capita what Germany does... Are you telling me we could not make cuts of 40% in it by going towards a more special forces, with good equipment model instead of the feet on the ground, control the population system?
We do not need to currently "control" ground, we need to simply destroy targets that are of threat (such as training camps), there is no need to "control" Iraq or Afghanistan.
 
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NHS budget is >100bn, are you telling me that the NHS is more than 75% efficient?
Work and Pensions (Social Protection) budget is 130bn, are you telling me that it is more than 75% efficient?

You have a very, very simplistic view. It simply doesnt work like that.
 
Soldato
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[TW]Fox;16477597 said:
You have a very, very simplistic view. It simply doesnt work like that.

How does it work then?
If efficiency is less than 75% it means you can cut 25% of the budget and still deliver the same level of service by improving efficiency.

If after everything is running at >95% efficiency you still are spending too much then you start to look at what areas you need to cut. Once you do that you look at areas where you need to increase, and then repeat the whole process until you end up with a service that runs at >95% efficiency and provides the most you can within the budget you have.
 
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Because outside of your textbook when you have a large high budget organisation with a huge workforce, 'simply' cutting 25% of the budget and expecting the same level of output is pure fantasy.

In your opinion, in healthcare, what is 95% efficiency?
 
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May I suggest you look up ideas such as fiscal multipliers? I'll also suggest looking at structural inefficiency and how it can thwart or misdirect any attempt at efficiency improvement?

How about political will? Can you imagine the reaction of the electorate to cutting the NHS budget by 25% Can you imagine the political capital the opposition parties would make from it?
 
Soldato
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A hung parliament is probably best for the motorist. Any change at all in method will be used to increase tax on the motorist as an "arbitrary consequence" of the change. So we need as ineffective a government as possible.
 
Soldato
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A hung parliament isn't best for anyone. It would almost certainly cause the markets to become incredibly unsettled and lead to the pound losing even more value against the dollar and euro, which in turn will increase fuel costs, vehicle and parts costs and road network support costs to name just the obvious.
 
Soldato
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How about political will? Can you imagine the reaction of the electorate to cutting the NHS budget by 25% Can you imagine the political capital the opposition parties would make from it?

If the budget cut does not impact service delivery then there is no political capital for the opposition to make, as their lack of support for such an act would in fact make them look bad.
 
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