@Hitstirrer This is from
Nov 2024 and I don't see any reviews of their new book on Amazon. Maybe nobody has bought a copy? (Genuine question)
In other words, they know that a lot of those who are wealthy enough to afford to lease/finance/buy a larger than average car will most likely absorb extra car tax, and hence, it's a way for the Treasury to keep or increase car tax revenues. How many people currently in a 2.5 ton luxury SUV are going to switch to a 1.5 ton city car to save a few quid each year? Costs like depreciation and insurance are likely to be way more than this new car tax.
How many people are going to drive less each year and take the bus instead, walk or even cycle under this new proposal? Probably those on lower incomes.
"However, Molden and Leach argue that there is a solution that is better for the environment, and simpler to administer and understand.
Molden explained: 'Taxing a car on a combination of its weight and mileage offers a simple, potentially universal approach to pricing-in the environmental impact of cars while at the same time overcoming the objections to the current mishmash of incentives and penalties.'
The pair will be launching a new book - Critical Mass: The One Thing You Need to Know About Green Cars - later this month, which outlines the new car tax proposals.
Molden continued: 'In our book, we offer an intuitive proof of why mass and distance are fundamental to designing a system to incentivise the purchase of ever-greener cars and this is contrasted with other
flawed bases for judging environmental impact, such as measures of vehicle efficiency, including energy and fuel efficiency, as well as elements incorporated in the current system such as fuel type and laboratory carbon dioxide emissions.'
The pair outline ways in which the system can be adopted and show the types of cars likely to taxed lightly and those that will be more expensive to keep on the road.
Broadly, smaller cars will be cheaper to tax.
Under Molden and Leach’s proposed system (taking the example of the UK), if an average car is 150kg lighter or does 1,000 fewer miles, the owner/operator would pay £100 less per year.
'Specific tax rates are proposed and compared to existing taxes to illustrate winners and losers –
winners being small city cars and loser including high-mileage heavy cars and SUVs,' said Leach.
'
The concept proposed is a reliable revenue-raiser at a time of widespread fiscal pressure and declining vehicle taxation. It could also be adopted rapidly and transitioning to it is easy.'
Molden added that deploying a single measure of a car’s environmental credentials to guide purchases and Government policy is the way forward, and the measure that takes account of approximately three-quarters of the environmental impact of a car is the car’s weight, and that metric correlates well with environmental damage.
He concluded: 'Most people want to do the right thing environmentally when they are buying a car, but the information and choices are now too complex for any normal consumer to understand fully.
'The question was whether there is a simple, practical way to point the car buyer in the right environmental direction and allow governments to tax and subsidise the right things – and there is.'"
.... maybe not the last one ...
www.service-public.fr
