Call for VED rebates
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by Ian Wylie • A Lincolshire haulier has launched a one-man campaign to win vehicle excise duty VED rebates for international operators.
Steve Dean, who runs 10 trucks to Germany and Turkey out of his Market Rasen depot, claims UK hauliers are being charged twice when they travel to the Continent, where charges for road usage are becoming widespread. Dean has just been fined £700 for refusing to pay his vehicle excise duty and ordered to pay £3,100 in back tax.
'Vignette' motorway charges were introduced earlier this year in Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg in line with an EU directive, while the Netherlands is expected to follow in September. To compensate their domestic hauliers, however, each state offers partial rebates on vehicle excise duties. Dean says this gives foreign operators a big competitive advantage in the UK where they are exempt from road tax.
He says: "My lorries are in the UK for eight days a month at most. If I'm to pay road usage charges in Europe, then I should only be paying a third of my road fund licence here."
The Road Haulage Association says it supports Dean's argument, if not the witholding of taxes. The RHA has submitted a rebate proposal to the Chancellor for the autumn mini-Budget and is urging hauliers to enlist the help of MPs and MEPs.
The Department of Transport says it would prefer to wait for the outcome of research into motorway tolling in the UK and claims British hauliers are better off than their Continental counterparts because they pay lower corporation tax.
But Mike Freeman, RHA controller of international affairs, says only the largest operators reap such benefits.
He says: "The smaller owner-operators are hit hardest by road usage charges which they are also having to pay in France and in every east European country. If British trade is to operate in Europe. British hauliers must be placed on an equal footing."