RAC comment on two tier VED/road tax proposal

RAC technical director David Bizley says: “We believe this is a hugely unfair system, particularly for people who only use the motorway system very occasionally as they would pay exactly the same as someone who uses the motorway to get to work every day. It would also inevitably create more traffic on other roads especially around motorway junctions and on roads that run parallel to motorways.

“Motorists already pay around £45bn a year in taxation which is four times as much as the Government spends on the maintaining and developing the road network. If we were to go down this route we would want to see any additional taxes ringfenced to ensure they are spent on roads.

“The RAC would ideally like to see a major overhaul of the motoring taxation system. In that instance we believe a ‘pay as you drive’ based solution is probably the least unattractive option but the 60% fuel tax issue would have to be addressed and reduced as part of this.

“People want transparency around motoring taxation and at the moment we are long way from that. This is why the RAC has been calling, along with FairFuelUK, for fuel receipts to list the cost of the fuel, duty and VAT separately.”