MPs disagree over tax rates
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AN ARGUMENT arose in the Commons last week when MPs passed the Finance Bill clauses which increase sonic rates of vehicle excise duty for goods vehicles.
Labour backbencher Dale Campbell-Savours pointed to four categories of vehicle used either tor general haulage or farming, all with four axles, yet the taxation categories were completely different.
A four-axle rigid goods vehicle of 29 to 30.49 tonnes was £2,420 while an articulated vehicle or the same size was charged only £1,680.
He wanted to know the substantial difference in tax when they were basically the same vehicles carrying the same materials and running as general haulage.
He said he did not believe claims that farmers would buy anything up to a 38 tonne tractive unit costing 05,000 or more and then use it less on the roads than other hauliers.
Mr Campbell-Savours said he believed the way in which the new excise duty arrangements had been introduced would allow far more tax evasion.
It was usual that the people who did not pay the ved were the smaller operators.
The Finance Bill was raising the tax for the kinds or vehicles that were invariably used by small hauliers, even though it had already been established that the smaller hauliers were more likely to evade taxation.
Junior Transport Minister Michael Spicer said that he would spell out the precise impact of the various changes in a letter to MPs.
Mr Spicer admitted that there were anomalies in the present system, particularly the difference between rigid and articulated vehicles.
'We are trying to correct the anomalies so that the excess of revenue over costs bears a greater relationship than at present to vehicles' track costs and usage.
The biggest anomaly was that articulated vehicles paid substantially more than rigid ones.