Talk:Road tax

message: It there any country that uses this term, if not then the lead should read 'Road tax is an informal term for Vehicle Excise Duty in the UK' and could possibly be turned into a redirect. Can someone provide evidence of other countries using it.
This article about travel to the US says 'There’s no federal road tax, although all states levy an annual registration fee, which varies considerably from state to state."PeterEastern (talk) 05:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: *I have researched this a bit more and moved content here from Vehicle Excise Duty, which is a UK specific article which had accumulated information for other countries. Should this article not more accurately be called Vehicle tax? Road tax is a historic term used informally only in the UK as far as I can see. PeterEastern (talk) 07:37, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

text: *The term Road Tax is generic, in common use and well understood.  Vehicle Excise Duty is the current UK government jargon for one specific road tax.  Other places in the world also have road taxes and their own names for them.  Strictly speaking it is probably more accurate to call it a Vehicle Public Road Tax because it takes both a vehicle and a public road before one has to be paid.  Vehicle Tax is poor choice because and can be confused with various vehicle purchase taxes.  The article could be expanded to cover all forms of road tax, including: tolls, fuel tax, congestion taxes, parking taxes, etc. -- de Facto (talk). 19:19, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: * I am not actually aware of any country where it is officially known as road tax. It is certainly commonly used by British people even in some official communications, but that might a result of UK history and its origins in the road fund. I have also found sites which explain Australian and US vehicle registration fees in such terms, but again the term seems to be used for the benefit of Brits; having said that I am not intending to do more work on the article. Incidentally the article has very few links in which implies that it is not a well used phrase. PeterEastern (talk) 22:21, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: *It has more incoming links now. - Fayenatic (talk) 08:32, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

text: *I have added a proposed move (below) to Annual vehicle tax, however as you propose an alternative would be to make a more general 'vehicle usage/ownership tax' umbrella tax article covering all the forms of tax you mention. Personally I think that it would be best to have both; 'annual vehicle tax' would be a summary of the form that annual vehicle tax takes around the world which could gain a lot of entries for different countries and then another 'vehicle usage/ownership tax' detailing the various forms that such taxes take, it would include summaries and links for tolls, fuel tax, congestion taxes, parking taxes but would avoid a blow by blow account of usage in different countries. Someone would need to check if a suitable article already existed. PeterEastern (talk) 08:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there any country that uses this term? 

message: I am starting a new section because this is far from a simple agreement for a move.
The main reason for a move is that the title does not conform to WP:NPOV in that the term road tax is contentious (which is possibly why we are arguing about it so much ;) ). Here are two examples to demonstrate that it is contentious. and .
DeFacto proposed the term Vehicle road tax above and I supported that proposal as I think that it would avoid the issues associated with road tax. Does anyone disagree? Would this is a suitable way of resolving the issue? I have twice asked DeFacto if he would support a move to the new name he proposed without a response. Have you gone off the term now DeFacto? What do other people think?
-- PeterEastern (talk) 14:49, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems from the discussion above that there is no clear consensus that the article should be renamed.  If or when such a consensus is reached I still prefer Vehicle road tax or Vehicle public road tax to Vehicle tax.  It does now seem to me though, especially after seeing more evidence of global use, that the current name should probably stay for now.  We can cover the UK cycling activists' misunderstanding of, and objection to, the term - if there are reliable references for it anywhere. -- de Facto (talk). 16:02, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: *Thank you for coming back to me DeFacto regarding your proposed name change. It seems that the issue comes down to whether the documented objection to the term by some groups, notably cyclists (for example  and ) is sufficient grounds for a name change given its general use (as demonstrated by the 'google test' used by Which?) and the recent examples of wider international use (United States, India, Nigeria, Cyprus, Barbados) under the WP:NPOV guidance. Personally I feel that the weight of evidence is falling towards retaining the current name for the article with its current international scope. I also feel that the newly improved section in the UK's Vehicle excise duty article on 'road tax' describs the current use of the term and the controversy surrounding it appropriately. I hope people have found the discussion useful, if only to draw more attention to this article and create a few more inbound links and build a better understanding of the international use of the term. If we don't get further comments then I suggest shall we draw the discussion to a close and leave the name unchanged. PeterEastern (talk) 19:28, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

text: I like "vehicle road fee", since "road tax" is wrong, as this is not an article about taxes levied to maintain roads, which are charged to people whether they have a motor vehicle or not. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 04:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Does "fuel tax" mean a tax levied to maintain fuel?  Or does alcohol tax mean a tax to maintain alcohol?  No, there is generally no link between the name of a tax and what is is used to fund; a tax is more usually named after what it is levied on. -- de Facto (talk). 06:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, by that argument, "road tax" could be interpreted as a tax on the owners or builders of roads, if you weren't familiar with the term! Since I assume all the taxes within the scope of this article are levied on ownership or use of vehicles, "Vehicle tax(ation)" seems like a reasonable title to me. Letdorf (talk) 11:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Why "builders", and not "users" of roads?  It's not the makers of cigarettes or alcohol that are being taxed by tobacco or alcohol tax, but the users.  But we have come round full circle - it's a tax, not on all road use and not on all vehicle use, but on specific combinations of the two.  See my suggestions above for article names if the consensus was that the current name is not tenable. -- de Facto (talk). 11:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

text: This is a subscription usage fee assessed on a class of user, a classified good (motor vehicle) that uses the service provided (road); your subscription allows access for a certain period of time, like a country club membership, which have membership subscription fees. A fuel tax is assessed on purchases of fuel, and is not a subscription fee. The VAT is a tax levied on "VA" content. The thing on this article is neither assessed on roads, nor for roads. Infrastructure taxes are common in the world, and are levied for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 07:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

text: It is a perfectly good reason to move it when the term "road tax" is used to mean an infrastructure tax levied to  build and maintain roads. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 22:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not 'Vehicle road tax'? 

message: "Since October 2014 licence details are stored centrally on a database."
Not according to my sources.  I'm reasonably certain that they've been stored centrally on a database since long before that time.  Indeed, I remember there being adverts during the time when tax discs were still being issued, showing an on-screen view of the database, from which DVLA can identify untaxed vehicles and issue fines (or worse) to their keepers.
Furthermore, I was getting reminder letters from DVLA to renew my road tax before that time.  These would not be possible had there been no central database. — Smjg (talk) 22:30, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK 2014 changes - inaccuracy 

message: At the end of the United Kingdom section there's a sentence which reads that in the 2015 UK budget there was an announcement that VED would be ring-fenced for expenditure on the strategic road network.
Having read the source, I cannot see that it supports the statement made: the linked source makes no mention of 2020, and seems to read that only the increase in VED and insurance premium tax would be increased.
Furthermore, I can't currently find any reliable source which shows this policy came into effect. Sigwinch28 (talk) 09:10, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  United Kingdom: 2015 Budget Ring-Fencing 

message: As the title says, this article seems to be overly long and could possibly benefit from being split into multiple, smaller, articles. For instance, it would make more sense (in my mind) to have the various different countries be their own separate pages if there is enough information that can be found for each. Villaida (talk) 22:47, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could this article be split into smaller articles?