Tax cyclist idea.........pedestrians next?

Raam

penexpers wrote: »

VAT is a general tax, so the argument that cycling is taxed already is a pretty weak one imo.

I think the point is that everything (almost) is taxed.

blorg

Motor tax goes to the local authorities, yes. It does not cover the cost of the road network. I could object as a cyclist to my income tax funding motorways which I do not use (note "could" as I don't object; I can see the general social benefit and need for the things.)

As for VAT on bikes meaning that cycling is already taxed, I'd flip it around and look at the other way. There are only a few select things that have specific taxation- cars, fuel, cigarettes and alcohol for example. Everything else is treated the same. The onus should be on those arguing for a bike tax as to why exactly bikes specifically should be added to this short list, rather than anything else. Why not tax running shoes?

"The motive for the implementation of excise should be nothing more than to curb the pursuit of goods and services harmful to our health and morals" - Adam Smith, allegedly.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

The onus should be on those arguing for a bike tax as to why exactly bikes specifically should be added to this short list, rather than anything else.

An excellent point. Except that I don't see it as a "bike tax", I see it as a "road tax for bikes". The reason is that cycling uses specific infrastructure, like driving a car. I'd be happy with a transferable tax disc, so you could use the same one on every one of your bikes blorg ;-)

I wasn't aware that Irish motor tax wasn't used for road maintenance. I'm fairly new to this country ("burn the Englishman!"), so my knowledge of the tax system is limited. In the UK, it is generally understood that "vehicle excise duty" is levied to meet costs of road building and maintenance, regardless of how the money is actually spent.

TinyExplosions

Lumen wrote: »

I wasn't aware that Irish motor tax wasn't used for road maintenance. I'm fairly new to this country ("burn the Englishman!"), so my knowledge of the tax system is limited. In the UK, it is generally understood that "vehicle excise duty" is levied to meet costs of road building and maintenance, regardless of how the money is actually spent.

Welcome over mate -it's much better here than on the mainland (speaking as a blow in myself -20 years and counting!)

I think the impression that motor tax pays for the roads is one of those prevailing myths in every country, thats never strictly been true... kind of like how the Queen is the only one allowed to kill and eat swans!

Chips Lovell

Lumen wrote: »

...I see it as a "road tax for bikes". The reason is that cycling uses specific infrastructure, like driving a car...

But car taxes don't finance roads completely. You seem to be operating under the misconception that cyclists are somehow using the roads for free, while motorists are paying the entire lot.

Lumen

el tonto wrote: »

But car taxes don't finance roads completely. You seem to be operating under the misconception that cyclists are somehow using the roads for free, while motorists are paying the entire lot.

Motor tax is about a billion a year. VRT is well over another billion (€1.4 bn estimated for 07). Fuel duty is probably at least another billion (5 billion litres a year used).

So that's probably about €4bn a year, excluding VAT. Do the roads really cost more than that to build and maintain?

If so, I'm in the wrong job.

Lumen

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Welcome over mate -it's much better here than on the mainland (speaking as a blow in myself -20 years and counting!)

Thanks. This is certainly the nicest part of the British Isles I've lived in.

(ducks and runs)

rflynnr

penexpers wrote: »

VAT is a general tax, so the argument that cycling is taxed already is a pretty weak one imo.

Motor Tax does go straight to the Local Government Fund. However, it is distrbuted on a "needs and resources" basis. I.e., it is definitively not exclusively earmarked for roads. To my knowledge (and I'm happy to be corrected on this) the only tax category which is ringfenced for particular expenditures is PRSI which goes to the Social Insurance Fund (logically since it's effectively an enforced insurance scheme). Even the levy on plastic bags goes into the central exchequer although there is a political commitment to spend a sum equivalent to the amount raised by the levy on "environmental projects".

And incidentally VAT isn't quite a general tax in the sense I think penexpers intends. There are effectively three rates of VAT in Ireland: 21%, 13.5% and 0%. (Technically there is a fourth rate of 4.8% for livestock but I'm sure you didn't need to know that.) Which VAT category a given product falls into is effectively a political decision reflecting the manner in which the state regards that product: thus most foods and drinks (not alcohol), medicines and children's clothes are VAT exempt because the state regards these as essential to existence. In that respect, at least, cars and bikes are regarded as equivalent by the state since both are taxed at 21%.

rflynnr

Lumen wrote: »

In the UK, it is generally understood that "vehicle excise duty" is levied to meet costs of road building and maintenance, regardless of how the money is actually spent.

Oddly enough, the first time I encountered this debate was in the UK where an Englishman gently corrected my then impression that UK motor taxes paid for UK roads. (This was in the context of a 1980s discussion about why British roads seemed so much better than their Irish equivalents.)

rp

TinyExplosions wrote: »

kind of like how the Queen is the only one allowed to kill and eat swans!

Just got this image of herself down the canal bbq'ing a swan, with her mates and a 6pac of Buckkie...

tunney

Lumen wrote: »

Why?

Cycling costs money, like driving. If someone can't afford a few euros a year for road tax, they probably can't afford lights, batteries, helmet etc.

We have a benefits system which gives poor people money for things other people can afford. By your argument, food, electricity and housing should also be free for everybody.

Its motor tax not road tax for starters.

I think that you'll find that most cyclists are also car owners and also pay motor tax.

rp

Lumen wrote: »

So that's probably about €4bn a year, excluding VAT. Do the roads really cost more than that to build and maintain?

People have done the sums for the US and UK - the latter, at 1992 prices came out as a shortfall of about £1000 per car per year. Might be less here, cuz VRT is higher, but you have to add in things like the cost of the entire traffic corps, the extra emergency service capacity needed (a single road fatality on average costs €1m, with all the call outs, autopsies, investigations).

Other costs arising include lost working time due to traffic jams, accidents, carbon tax deficit payments, effect on balance of payments of importing all that fuel ... cycling tax me assos - we should be paid to ride.

tunney

nipplenuts wrote: »

Methane's an emission. And so's CO2, which cyclists put out more of than motorists (note I said motorists, not cars)

Not necessarily.

Fuel efficiency also counts for people as well as cars. For the fitter cyclists on these boards their daily commutes barely count as exercise.

Raam

tunney wrote: »

Not necessarily.

Fuel efficiency also counts for people as well as cars. For the fitter cyclists on these boards their daily commutes barely count as exercise.

True. I'd count my commute as "somewhat keeping me ticking over", but I wouldn't use my commute as a replacement for a good long hard ride. (Is there any way to re-phrase that without making it sound dirty?)

TinyExplosions

Raam wrote: »

True. I'd count my commute as "somewhat keeping me ticking over", but I wouldn't use my commute as a replacement for a good long hard ride. (Is there any way to re-phrase that without making it sound dirty?)

Nope, fraid not... and only compounded by using Raam as your username

Vélo

Raam wrote: »

I wouldn't use my commute as a replacement for a good long hard ride. (Is there any way to re-phrase that without making it sound dirty?)

Nope!

hungryjohnjohn

While i think its not right it could be done at source [offerd as part of sale on new bycles] .Now does mean each bycycle would be registerd and each cyclist having to carry and show a tax disc :eek:.How and why would they spend money trying to catch people on older bikes unless they stopped everyone.How much time and resources are acceptable to use and would there be fixed fines.

DirkVoodoo

Bah, total codswollop!

Motorists are taxed on the luxury of being able to drive, simple as. If anything, cyclists should be getting paid for taking more cars off the road and making the average commute a bit easier on those long suffering folk in their nice toasty cars on a winter morning (Just don't let on that we like cycling, keep the angry faces and general fist waving!)

Surely in this new environmentally conscious age we should be taxing cyclists according to their emissions?? A tax on breathing and farting, that's what we need!

biologikal

rp wrote: »

.. cycling tax me assos - we should be paid to ride.

Will try to keep on topic (insofar as this is an inane thread anyway!)... with cyclists (males) lowering their sperm count, surely the reduced dependence on child benefits will negate the need for a cycling tax (actually, if you ask me, with population pressure/energy costs/water/food issues, child benefits should be abolished: if anything, there should be taxes for any more than two children per couple - there are enough useless people in this world already; put more energy into raising decent human beings).

Vélo

biologikal wrote: »

if anything, there should be taxes for any more than two children per couple - there are enough useless people in this world already).

Do you want your go?

Lumen

biologikal wrote: »

child benefits should be abolished: if anything, there should be taxes for any more than two children per couple - there are enough useless people in this world already).

Only a childless person could suggest that a financial disincentive is required.

They cost a fortune!

aburke

Move to Holland
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/10/promoting-cycling-in-netherlands-earn.html
I'm sure the letter writer would LOVE that idea!

Chips Lovell

Lumen wrote: »

Motor tax is about a billion a year. VRT is well over another billion (€1.4 bn estimated for 07). Fuel duty is probably at least another billion (5 billion litres a year used).

So that's probably about €4bn a year, excluding VAT. Do the roads really cost more than that to build and maintain?

If so, I'm in the wrong job.

Yup. According to the DOE, local authorities spent €1.2 billion last year. Assuming the NRA is spending in the region of €2 billion a year now, that's €3.2 billion right there on construction and maintenance alone. The cops annual budget is in the region of €1.5 billion these days and a good whack of that will go on road traffic policing. That's to say nothing of the cost of emergency services and environmental costs (such as buying carbon credits etc). Now, ask yourself this. How much of the budget for new road building is accounted for by cycling. How much of the damage that needs repair would be accounted for by cycling? How much of the policing budget is allocated to chasing cyclists?

Lumen

el tonto wrote: »

Yup. According to the DOE, local authorities spent €1.2 billion last year. Assuming the NRA is spending in the region of €2 billion a year now, that's €3.2 billion right there on construction and maintenance alone.

Total govt budget is €40bn - that's 8% of total government spending. :eek:

I can't believe much of the police budget goes on roads though, and I thought that A&E costs were recouped from insurers?

Carbon trading is a nonsense, IMO. Just exports manufacturing, and won't actually solve anything globally.

Still, it seems we don't have precise enough figures to determine whether motoring taxes pay for the roads overall - it seems in the ballpark one way or another.

Chips Lovell

Lumen wrote: »

Total govt budget is €40bn - that's 8% of total government spending. :eek:

That sounds about right.

Lumen wrote: »

Carbon trading is a nonsense, IMO. Just exports manufacturing, and won't actually solve anything globally.

Whether it's nonsense or not, we still have to pay for it.

scottreynolds

Lumen wrote: »

Still, it seems we don't have precise enough figures to determine whether motoring taxes pay for the roads overall - it seems in the ballpark one way or another.

Don't forget % of pertrol price is something like 50% tax. I'm sure someone wil have the correct amount. The total tax generated from petrol sales will be very high.

Chips Lovell

scottreynolds wrote: »

Don't forget % of pertrol price is something like 50% tax. I'm sure someone wil have the correct amount. The total tax generated from petrol sales will be very high.

That's excise and he was already factoring that into his figures.

DirkVoodoo

According to the CSO, in 2006 there were 36,306 men and women over the age of 15 cycling to work, versus some 1,080,446 who drove a car.

That means that this great scheme by the independent reader would net the government 360,000 euro to spend on maintaining, ehh....a set of traffic lights maybe, build a traffic island, i dunno!

10 euro would be a purely symoblic tax. Its not enough money, and there are not enough cyclists for the government to even consider taxation.

Chips Lovell

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

That means that this great scheme by the independent reader would net the government 360,000 euro to spend on maintaining, ehh....a set of traffic lights maybe, build a traffic island, i dunno!

€360K minus the adminstrative cost of collecting the tax and enforcement.

DirkVoodoo

I pity the guy who would have to do that, you would officially be a notch below the regular taxman.