seen a lot about this subject in the media lately, which is usually debated from driver’s comments about ‘cyclist should pay road tax’.

This leads to debates about whether cyclists should pay some sort of tax to ride on the roads and display reg plates, etc.

Cant help thinking that with the rate of increase of petrol and subsequent rise of the commuting cyclist numbers that the government will have no choice than to tax cyclists in some form and the media is government spin in pushing the agenda to some tax proposal in the future.

Its just a question of when?? You watch and then we can all say i told you so. That said if it happens then this would be cause for an uprising of the cyclist!!

Whats your thoughts????!!!!

VED is based on emmisions.
Apart from Binners, no cyclist created noxious emmisions.
Ergo, nothing to ‘Tax’ so to speak..

DrP

Even if they were taxed, it would be free, going by the current emissions based system.

edit: snap.

Im covered already

VED is paid essentially to offset the damage the vehicle does to the environment.

Introducing something similar for cyclists whilst low emission vehicles are still zero rated would be absurd, and I’d suggest would probably be political suicide. Can’t see it happening.

VAT on bikes
VAT on cars

Some Cars don’t even pay VED (Prius Insight etc…) and they are still burning fossil fuels

how on earth could they tax cycling?

No one pays Road Tax and now no one pays VED, it’s Car Tax now.

Just to add to the confusion.

Forgot – I’m already covered too….

DrP!!

A fair proportion (25%?) of VED goes to administering the enforcement and collection of road tax.

Add in bicycles and god knows what percentage that would rise to.

Plus what do you tax?
Okay so you tax commuters and road bikes. What about mountain bikes that are used mainly off road?
What about bikes kept in the shed or the garage and pulled out and used 2 sunny days a year. Do they need a SORN?
What about kids bikes?
etc
etc

Too much to think about, too much hassle to administrate versus what you could reasonable expect a cyclists to pay.

Plus as others have said cyclists already pay VED at the correct rate for their CO2 emission £0

good luck policing that.

MOT for bikes on the other hand 😉 …… some of the rafts i see being ridden to work on. the noises they make WOW –

Thats hope hubs for you 😉

never going to happen are they going to tax my kids for cycling to school ?
Enforcement would be very difficult and probably cost more than it raised

A fair proportion (25%?) of VED goes to administering the enforcement and collection of road tax.

What does that even mean? Road tax doesn’t exist…

Glad to see some refreshing views on the subject.

A fair proportion (25%?) of VED goes to administering the enforcement and collection of road tax.

What does that even mean? Road tax doesn’t exist…

FFS I think you know what I meant. A good chunk of the taxation raised goes to the administration of raising the tax in the first place. “road tax” being the accepted colloquial nomenclature for Vehicle Excise Duty

“road tax” being the accepted

but it’s not accepted.
That’s the point.
In using it it perpetuates the myth that bicycles have a lesser right of presence on the road.

Fair enough, it doesn’ make the point I was making any less valid.

“road tax” “car tax” or VED on bicycles would never work.

FFS I think you know what I meant.

No I really didn’t, the fact you used VED and road tax in the same sentence made me think you really were referring to the mythical tax!

cyclists already pay VED at the correct rate for their CO2 emission

depends what they had for dinner the night before 😉

I’d only be prepared to pay a “bike tax” if it also contained a comprehensive bike registration scheme, and virtually stamped out bike theft.

Won’t happen.

Carlton Reid has already summarised the arguments here
http://ipayroadtax.com/licensed-to-cycle/licensed-to-cycle/

If they scrapped VED tomorrow, and implemented a proper “road tax” that was ringfenced, there would be no easy cost effective and thorough way to tax bikes other than to bring in a full licencing & training system similar to cars and motorbikes. Cycling costs would go up massively, and cycling rates would drop dramatically. You’d end up with more cars and traffic on the road (possibly more deaths too).In London, most of the public transport is already close to bursting point and would be even more overcrowded.

And on the plus side, you would achieve… what?

And on the plus side, you would achieve… what?

You get to shut up the uneducated moronic journalists who churn out shit about ‘cyclists not paying road tax’?

frankly id rather see tax scrapped all together and fuel prices go up to make up for it.

that way those that use their cars very little pay less , those heavy users pay more.

seems much fairer than the current system.

much harder to get out of paying it- ie you cant just not pay it or your car wont work and much cheaper to admin

make folk think twice about using their car just because its is there.

worked out today that in fuel alone it costs me 6 quid a day to come to work – if this were closer to the true representation of running the car for that journey then im sure more folk would think twice.

Stoner + DrP where do I get one of those tax discs from?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=52717367&postcount=103

where do I get one of those tax discs from?

http://ipayroadtax.com/

the government will have no choice than to tax cyclists in some form

hmmm so VAT on my bike bits, income tax on my wage, VAT etc on my fuel (cakes, oh wait, ok choccy biscuits)

Motorists (I’m one of those aswell) get spanked for fuel duty cause it’s supposed to make them think whether they really need to drive to the shops. Doesn’t work of course, instead everyone drives 0.5mile to the shops leaves engine running while they nip in the shop and then drive home and go online to complain about cost of petrol.

Ultimately, if we all drove VED-exempt cars or rode bicycles, the govt would need to find some way of generating the lost ‘income’ from everyone paying VED

So, they’s either “reinvent” the VED scheme & charge individal owners, or implement a pay-to-drive scheme where you’re charged based on mileage driven.

Cyclists should still be exempt (biased, moi?), as I can’t see how a registration system for bikes could ever be financially viable considering how much a scheme would cost to implement, administrate & enforce.

Unless the cost was absorbed in the charges made to motorists.

Which would really make them happy.
And give them a real reason to resent cyclists.

No one pays Road Tax and now no one pays VED, it’s Car Tax now.

At least that’s less inaccurate than ‘road tax’ … although I really can’t see why we need a special phrase to use in place of ‘VED’, that means ‘VED’ but without actually saying ‘VED’ 🙄

Ultimately, if we all drove VED-exempt cars or rode bicycles, the govt would need to find some way of generating the lost ‘income’ from everyone paying VED

The lost income from VED would be made up for in reduced spending on the environmental and health effects of the polluting cars?

that’s assuming producing all those VED exempt cars didn’t cause other environmental and health hazards 🙂

VED is a tax, the fact they’ve tried to brand it as something to do with the environment / environmental damage is just an attempt to distract. A car with a big engine which is driven 1,000 miles a year produces way less damage than a small car driven for 20,000 miles. The “low/zero tax” cars with systems like engine off are a joke as you can just switch that feature off. The money goes into the central pot and is spent in the same as is income tax.

Cyclists already pay huge amounts of tax in the form of VAT. Having bought a new bike this year plus other odd and ends I think I’m up to around 600 quid and that’s not including duty on fuel I’ve spent driving to different riding venues (e.g. 40 in fuel taxes for round trip to Peak district).

Having cyclists visibly registered is a good idea for traffic law enforcement

trail_rat – Member
frankly id rather see tax scrapped all together and fuel prices go up to make up for it.

that way those that use their cars very little pay less , those heavy users pay more.
Trouble is that’s a big tax on living in the countryside or in a place with little public transport.

As an aside STW’ers may be interested to know that in Singapore you have to pay £50k upfront for the right to drive your car for the next 10 years (COE – Certificate of Entitlement), plus their petrol is taxed like ours and they electronic road tolls everywhere.

Registering cyclists will cause one of the biggest civil disobediences in modern history. They should do it and then we can change governments about 3 weeks later, it could be our Cycling Dawn, we should get the French to come over and bomb Audi and BMW dealerships.

Having cyclists visibly registered is a good idea for traffic law enforcement

so who you going to register? My lad on his balance bike? Obviously not but where do you draw the line? How do you enforce it? How do you pay for the system and enforcement. It’ll cost a bomb and as far as I can see there’s not a vast amount to gain.

<edit>What about all the misdemeanour’s (and bigger crimes) done by pedestrians? Maybe we should tattoo bar codes on every ones forehead and have bar code readers on all CCTV?

Limited life COE sounds a step forward
50K tho 😯

“Trouble is that’s a big tax on living in the countryside or in a place with little public transport. “

i live in the country side and would have to walk 5 miles to a bus.

the only issue i can see is disability vehicles – its not fair on them.

A couple of million cars on our roads don’t have to pay road tax VED car tax, so why should cyclists?

I often wonder how the “you don’t pay ‘road tax’, you have no rights on the road” mentality works in practise.

Does a Band A car have no road rights either?

Does a Band B car have ten times less right than Band H?

You could never police it.

Also, I pay VED for 2 cars and currently have 2 of my motorcycles on the road so 2 lots of VED for motorcycles too.

I think I pay enough…

I often wonder how the “you don’t pay ‘road tax’, you have no rights on the road” mentality works in practise.

that’s easy, it doesn’t work, just spouted by idiots who can’t think things through and just repeat stupid mantras they’ve heard down the pub.