Where does the road tax money go ?

[dozy]

If we only get 20% of the road tax collected being used for the roads ,where does the 80% go ? . Maybe its used to give Lewis Hamilton a vat refund on his £20 million plus jet.

[cesare]

If we only get 20% of the road tax collected being used for the roads ,where does the 80% go ? . Maybe its used to give Lewis Hamilton a vat refund on his £20 million plus jet.
i dont think that is any of our concern unless we work in government

[pig whisperer]

the state our roads are in, i think we should be concerned,

[dozy]

The state of the road are leading to deaths and those to turn to the three monkey school of thought should hang their heads in same. To many self centred and I'm . all right jack folk on this site . Maybe their view would change if the hand of misfortune paid them a visit.

[sids]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/UK-Government-Expenditure-2016-17.jpg/1024px-UK-Government-Expenditure-2016-17.jpg

[Kodiak]

Road Tax was abolished in 1937 and replaced by Vehicle Excise Duty. This is a tax on cars, not roads, and it goes straight into the general Treasury fund.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23694438

[dozy]

So the Westminster government ( Tories ) have doubled the national debt for what ? Thats about £750 billion ,so where did it go and to whom?

[B0wer]

Hang on dozy transportation was devolved to Hollyrood years ago so it's not up to Westminster to see that money earmarked "for roads" actually gets spent on roads, besides Road/vehicle tax hasn't paid for roads since the 1930's "the money the government received in vehicle tax simply wasn’t enough to cover our sudden need for more roads and roads of better quality. So the authorities, both local and general, stepped in and started paying for it. And since then, our roads are funded by the government and not directly by what we pay in road tax." https://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/ (http://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/) I believe the latest traunch of devolution gave Hollyrood the power to raise tolls (though I could be wrong on that one) they are defiantly now allowed to tweek taxes and keep the results; so if they wanted they could raise income tax by say 5% they keep that extra 5%to spend on roads, nhs... anything they fancy really.

Personally I'd have a lot more respect for them if they had the balls to say "yes we are hiking taxes but look we've fixed your roads and the hospitals work."

As for to whom? That's a good question... Westminster is corrupt but, you cant lay our potholes at their feet I'm afraid. (lets be man enough to own up to our own mistakes)

[B0wer]

And no dozy I'm not hiding my head in the sand. Our daughter was blue lighted down to Raigmore a couple of years ago, her only complaint was that the bumpy pot holes hurt her so. I regularly report potholes.

[badger]

Unfortunately the council has wasted a lot of money with that first Jetpatcher; the repairs didn't last. Don't know whether the second one is any better. More and bigger heavy lorries/vans doesn't help.

[2little2late]

Wasting money is 'e cooncil's forte. To be a cooncilor one has to be good at wasting money i.e. claiming travel expenses when car sharing (allegedly).

[gerry4]

Hang on dozy transportation was devolved to Hollyrood years ago so it's not up to Westminster

Certain aspects of transport might of been devolved but vehicle excise duty has not. If it changes then it is via the Westminster Budget

[B0wer]

Granted gerry4 road tax is not devolved , I wasn't implying that. Road Tax hasn't had anything to do with transportation since the 30's. What I meant is that as Hollyrood is in charge of overseeing the spending on transport AND roads are paid for by general taxation over which Hollyrood does have the power to change to reflect the different demands of the Scottish economy/nation either a. they don't have enough money in which case why aren't they using their tax powers to earmark money for road maintianence or b. the money sent up by Westminster for roads is adequate they just haven't got round to filling in the potholes (insert your own motive here.)

[gerry4]

The Scottish Gov. does not have control over general taxation. Only over Income Tax and some minor taxes. The major ones like, VAT, NHI, Corporation tax, etc are still controlled by Westminster.
Reading reports from south of the border the english roads seem to be in the same state as ours. If Westminster is not providing enough for england then the amount allocated up here will also be insufficient.

[Goodfellers]

Interesting article on BBC today


From 2020 the money for road improvements will come from vehicle excise duty, which raised £6bn in 2016.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42464125