Why are loads of staff at work asking my advise?

[User16625]

We always have this point raised on VED threads (I know you aren't doing this). The taxes on cars are for specific things. This is a tax to discourage (not very much, just a a little) workplace parking. Car drivers have for decades enjoyed free and extremely generous workplace parking. That era is very slowly coming to an end. If you want services then it'd probably cost a lot more.

In this case cars are (quite often) large metal objects that take up a (lot of) space. Space is valuable. Tarmac causes other environmental problems associated with the water table or heating up cities.

I don't see why people complain so much about taxes to do with specific things like VED or workplace parking levy. They are for specific things.

Don't see the tolls thing. I've been to Italy recently and I had no idea that they have so many tolls there. Apparently quite a few motorways seem to charge around 8p per mile. You can just imagine the uproar here if that were the case. It would be revolutionary. Some of their other tolls there make our bridge and London/Durham congestion charge seem provincial.

My tax this year is £76. It goes up £2 per year for a machine capeable of 140-150mph so im not complaining. I just think its wrong that motorists in general have to pay the bulk of the countries taxes which in themselves are ridiculous. If I were a car driver I would be so effin mad even if I could reasonably afford what they charge. The very fact they are charged for where ever they go must do their heads in.
In john o groats it did my head in being charged 20p to take a piss. I could easily afford it but down here in wales our crap houses are free to use whether your scottish or afghanistani! My point being is basic things should be free in a country that has taxes as high as ours. I guess my opinion is considered to be unreasonable, nothing against that aslong as it comes from another british tax payer.

 

[subaqua]

Come to the 'sham, any commuter town in the south east at evening rush hour, watch the cars coming from less than a mile away, to sit in a queue, engine running, waiting to collect the significant other from their rail commute.

FTFY or if i may be so bold to put an addition

watch how many people pour out of the train and trudge up a car park and then drive less than 1 mile to home and smirk how they get the fuel paid for and parking by the company and then moan that the company hasn't given them a pay rise for 3 years, without making the link that if most of the company do that thats why its not able to give pay rises. #and breathe.

car sick is what it is.

 

[subaqua]

In my world the bus routes have been cancelled, and the train lines only carry freight. Does this mean I don't live in the real world?

and why did the routes get cancelled? lack of use as people got lazier and used cars?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

My tax this year is £76. It goes up £2 per year for a machine capeable of 140-150mph so im not complaining. I just think its wrong that motorists in general have to pay the bulk of the countries taxes which in themselves are ridiculous. If I were a car driver I would be so effin mad even if I could reasonably afford what they charge. The very fact they are charged for where ever they go must do their heads in.
In john o groats it did my head in being charged 20p to take a piss. I could easily afford it but down here in wales our crap houses are free to use whether your scottish or afghanistani! My point being is basic things should be free in a country that has taxes as high as ours. I guess my opinion is considered to be unreasonable, nothing against that aslong as it comes from another british tax payer.

I find it simplicity itself to avoid these motorist specific taxes. Don't want to pay VED? Buy a zero rated car, want lower insurance, drive within the law in a car in a low rated insurance group, want to minimise the fuel duty you pay, drive a car the does 50+ to the gallon. Want to avoid the whole shebang? Don't own or operate a car. I've met logs that were harder to fall off.

I'm an ordinary joe higher rate taxpayer on the PAYE and I don't think our taxes are high, and I'm willing to pay more if the money goes on education, healthcare, public transport etc., rather than on road building, trident replacement, aircraft carriers and pointless foreign wars.

 

[ufkacbln]

Car drivers already pay through the roof in fuel duty, vat on fuel duty (which is a tax tax), extortionate insurance rates (which are subject to value added theft VAT), tolls, and for the ones that dont hold everyone up have to pay the odd speeding fine too. (which increases their insurance further). Not to mention maintenance costs such as £50 per hour plus parts for servicing and repair. After all that I think drivers have the right to at least stop for free. I ride a motorcycle and therefore end up parking in places where a car wouldnt be able to or I can park for free anyway. I think paying to park is a rip off unless some sort of service is supplied (such as security or insurance) in return. It costs you in petrol to keep the car running, why should they be charged to turn their engines off? Dont even get me started on congestion charging!

I know this is a cycling forum but most of you lot must drive cars too! I get cut up by cars sometimes too btw, but there are good drivers out there.

You choose to drive a car, and these are the cost for that decision, and irrelevant in any other context. Lets never mind the fact that the true costs are in fact subsidised.... Home and personal insurance policy payments subsidised the motor sector by £2 billion pounds in 2010. What we should be doing is recognising that motorists are in reality heavily subsidised by other revenue incomes and despite the bleating only pay a fraction of the true costs

Mind you I have a thought.... It's really a bit like claiming that because I drink beer, pay duty on the alcohol and VAT on that beer that the pub should have to provide me with a seat and you lot should subsidise my beer!

 

[marinyork]

My tax this year is £76. It goes up £2 per year for a machine capeable of 140-150mph so im not complaining. I just think its wrong that motorists in general have to pay the bulk of the countries taxes which in themselves are ridiculous. If I were a car driver I would be so effin mad even if I could reasonably afford what they charge. The very fact they are charged for where ever they go must do their heads in.

Don't see the charged for where ever they go. The UK is relatively toll free apart from a few bridges (can think of a few high profile ones like in Oxfordshire,the Dartford Bridge, Skye Bridge, Humber Bridge etc. Congestion charging hasn't really taken off in the UK.

In john o groats it did my head in being charged 20p to take a piss. I could easily afford it but down here in wales our crap houses are free to use whether your scottish or afghanistani! My point being is basic things should be free in a country that has taxes as high as ours. I guess my opinion is considered to be unreasonable, nothing against that aslong as it comes from another british tax payer.

I don't consider it unreasonable, it just doesn't seem logically based against any standard reference (or imaginative one). By taxes people usually mean income tax and that is lower now that the post-war consensus and even into Thatcher's era. If you mean indirect taxes then of course you can blame Mr Heath for that, but the %of GDP isn't insanely high. I suppose you could compare to the earlier twentieth century and the era AJP Taylor famously wrote about how small the state was and in that case then yes the state would be large and overall burden of taxes high. I suppose the other avenues of thought would be the bits of the conservative party that think that the state should be 35% of GDP or else the flat tax supporters with similar ideas.