‘It’s not called road tax!’; Autumn Statement reaction; Anti-LTN activists make video game where cyclists “transform streets”, and it’s fun; Le Col-Wahoo in danger after sponsor pulls out; Wiggins Jr aims high; Nairo’s coming home? + more on the live blog

joe9090 wrote:

It's Ghent. Not Gent.

Gent is the Dutch/Flemish spelling and the one the inhabitants themselves use, so it's perfectly acceptable, as is the English (and only English) Ghent.

Rendel Harris wrote:

joe9090 wrote:

It's Ghent. Not Gent.

Gent is the Dutch/Flemish spelling and the one the inhabitants themselves use, so it's perfectly acceptable, as is the English (and only English) Ghent.

My late mother was from Geraardsbergen and proud of being Flemish, she would immediately correct any Frenchification of Flemish names.

God help anyone who referred to her home town as 'Grammont'.

People say road tax because that's what it is. They might obfuscate it by calling it "VED" or some other term, but it's still road tax.

Just like National insurance is an income tax.

In what respect is VED a 'road tax'? Roads are paid from general taxation. Income Tax is more of a 'road tax' than VED.

Good job proving the point though. When they talk about increasing National Insurance, they call it 'National Insurance' and not 'income tax' even though NI is a tax on income. E.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62998661

You call it trolling but that's misdirection!  It's clearly healthy debate about issues that are important to me; it's not defending the indefensible - it can't be, because I'm defending it!  Thankfully lots of - constructive - points have been made by several (1) people...

Rakia wrote:

People say road tax because that's what it is. They might obfuscate it by calling it "VED" or some other term, but it's still road tax.

It's not Road Tax, it's a tax on the vehicle. There's no obfuscation.

The rate depends on the vehicle and nothing else. Many people call it Road Tax because media outlets and even manufacturers (incorrectly) use that term. Its continued use serves to perpetuate a widespread misconception that VED pays for road maintenance when that is patently not true, just like fuel duty, the duty on alcohol, VAT, insurance tax and a myriad others.

Next you'll be telling us that Brexit doesn't really mean Brexit at all, that's an obfuscation and it is in fact a magic money pot because it was written in big letters on a bus (one of many barefaced lies told by the Tories over the last 12 years).

Simon E wrote:

It's not Road Tax, it's a tax on the vehicle. There's no obfuscation.

Wrong, it isn't a tax on the vehicle. If you don't drive or keep the vehicle on the road, you don't have to pay the tax. This is different to, say council tax, where even if your don't live in the house you still pay the tax. Hence "road tax" is the most appropriate name.

As for the other bloke who said it isn't road tax because it isn't spent on the roads, taxes are named according to what they tax rather than what they are spent on. For example, cigarette tax doesn't enable people to buy more cigarettes does it?

Sheesh, you remainers really are easy to hoodwink, aren't you?

Rakia wrote:

Sheesh, you remainers really are easy to hoodwink, aren't you?

I love how you assume we're remainers because we show a modicum of intelligence. Says it all really.

So road tax taxes roads?
Wow, you brexiters really are easy to hoodwink.

In the words of Le Clerque, this matter is outside the true province of the conscientious commentator in as much as being unable to say aught that is charitable or useful, he must preserve silence

Is that this one?  I have to ask because he's a master of disguise.

Rakia wrote:

Wrong, it isn't a tax on the vehicle. If you don't drive or keep the vehicle on the road, you don't have to pay the tax.

F..k me, you are either supremely dense or you do this solely to get a response.

The vehicle is what is taxed, the condition is that it is intended for use on public highways. If I want to use it on the road I also need insurance, which includes insurance tax, but this is not a 'road tax' either.

If I am not the registered keeper of a car or I have a tax-exempt vehicle (e.g. a 'historic vehicle') I pay no VED but I can still use the roads.

Simon E wrote:

F..k me, you are either supremely dense or you do this solely to get a response.

Most likely both

Rakia wrote:

As for the other bloke who said it isn't road tax because it isn't spent on the roads, taxes are named according to what they tax rather than what they are spent on.  

Which is why it's called vehicle excise duty, not road excise duty, because it taxes the vehicle, not the use of the road; it doesn't matter whether you drive 100,000 miles a year or 10, your vehicle is taxed the same. 

If anyone sees somebody limping around leafy Essex, stop and give Nigel a lift with you, he appears to have just shot himself in the foot. No wonder he's so keen on using so many aliases, an accountant who showed himself unable to differentiate between different forms of taxation wouldn't be getting much business.

If you have a problem with it not being called road tax I suggest you take it up with that notorious woke lefty libtard Winston Churchill, who made the decision not to have a road tax.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Which is why it's called vehicle excise duty, not road excise duty, because it taxes the vehicle, not the use of the road; it doesn't matter whether you drive 100,000 miles a year or 10, your vehicle is taxed the same. 

Are you a parrot? You've just repeated the false information Simon E spewed out a couple of hours ago. This road tax isn't a vehicle tax, because if you don't use your vehicle on the road, you don't pay the tax. It is therefore a road tax.

Surely even you, devoid of logic, wit and plain common sense, can see that. To make this really really really easy, IQ 70 easy for you, I will compare the tax to Zwift.

If you don't use Zwift, you do not pay for Zwift.

If, however, you go on Zwift once a month and do a minute session, you pay for Zwift. If you go on Zwift a hundred times a month and do the Alpe de Zwift 400 times, you pay for Zwift. You are paying to use Zwift.

The same is true for roads. If you use the roads, you have to pay a tax to use the roads. If you don't use the roads, you don't have to pay a tax to use the roads. And this is the reason when the misnomer "vehicle tax" is in fact a road tax.

Business is good by the way. Very good. After leftist chancellor Hunt brought in these anti-work measures yesterday people are diving to find out how they can be avoided. Much better to avoid paying tax than simply give up work altogether, which appears to be the modus operandi of both the leftist Tory and Liebour parties.

Rakia wrote:

If you use a vehicle of certain types on the roads, you have to pay a tax to use that vehicle on the roads. If you don't use that vehicle on the roads, you don't have to pay a tax to use that vehicle on the roads.

Meanwhile, other types of vehicle can be used on the roads without paying a specific tax for the privilege. 

And this is the reason when the why "road tax" is a misnomer "vehicle tax" is in fact a road tax.

FTFY

[EDIT: if we're being pernickety (and I think we are), I should in each case have said "use or keep" the vehicle on the road.]

Dreary me, this logic is getting worse and worse. It's like debating about Mr Tumble with a bunch of two year olds.

Just because some vehicles don't pay the tax doesn't mean the tax isn't a road tax. I might buy cigarettes in duty free, to use a previous example.

This doesn't stop the fact that for those people who are paying the tax, it is a road tax.

• If they didn't use the roads, they would not pay the tax.
  • If they use the vehicles, they do not necessarily pay the tax. I could race my car on Silverstone and not pay the tax, despite the fact I'm using the vehicle.
• If they use the road, they do pay the tax.
• It is therefore a necessary condition of paying the tax that the vehicle has to use the public road. Therefore the tax is a road tax.

I'll have a think about some other even more simple examples later, maybe involving dinosaurs, Minecraft or Ryan's World. Ta ta for now.

Rakia wrote:

• It is therefore a necessary condition of paying the tax that the vehicle has to use the public road. 

If you pay VED you have to use the public road? So if you pay the tax and for some reason don't drive or park on the road that year you get sanctioned?

Love watching stupid people trying to be clever. 

Rendel Harris wrote:

If you pay VED you have to use the public road? So if you pay the tax and for some reason don't drive or park on the road that year you get sanctioned?

Love watching stupid people trying to be clever. 

Debating with stupid trolls is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon -- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

This is going to really brass you off, but do you know the reason why so many people debate with me?

Because they love it!

And who wouldn't? Yes, Rendel had a "gotcha" moment there when he pored over my words and spotted an erroneous transposition. I'm a busy person and I'll own the mistake. I'm pleased to give him a morale boost, a spring in his step. It's Friday evening after all!

Yes, it is a necessary condition of paying the tax that a vehicle is used on the road. But the tax is paid only by those using vehicles. It is not paid by all who use the road. To my mind the tax is therefore defined more by vehicle use than road use - there are more road users who are not liable to the tax than there are vehicle users. I'd be happy to compromise on "Vehicle on Road Excise Duty", but since it's been called Vehicle Excise Duty since 1889, let's just stick with that.  

Yes you are dreary. Who's Mr Tumble?

Rakia wrote:

Just because some vehicles don't pay the tax doesn't mean the tax isn't a road tax... This doesn't stop the fact that for those people who are paying the tax, it is a road tax.

By the same token you could say "just because some vehicles don't pay Air Passenger Tax doesn't mean it isn't a travel tax. For airline passengers, it's a travel tax." That wouldn't be a senisble classification - it is use of an aeroplane that is being taxed, not all travel. The fact that an individual has chosen a method of travel which attracts a tax does not mean that travel as a whole is taxed. 

The beauty of reading a post of yours is that it leads one inescapably to the happy conviction that one is not, of all nincompoops, the greatest

Rakia wrote:

If you use the roads, you have to pay a tax to use the roads. If you don't use the roads, you don't have to pay a tax to use the roads. And this is the reason when the misnomer "vehicle tax" is in fact a road tax.

Except ... you don't. You can bike, or run, or skateboard, or horse-ride as much as you like on the roads and no need to pay any tax for using them.

But .... if you have two motor vehicles then you have to pay VED twice in order to use the same roads.

Huh ... almost like it wasn't actually a road tax, but a vehicle tax? Weird, isn't it?

You know that situation where your offspring / pet / partner / boss complains that they can smell poo, and you spot some poo and clean it up, then you realise it was their poo, but now it's got on you, and now they're saying / looking at you like "you smell of poo"?

Obviously people who listen to radio 4 and Today are a bit thick and can't understand anything more than simple concepts.
At least that was their defence over previous criticism of language.

hirsute wrote:

Obviously people who listen to radio 4 and Today are a bit thick and can't understand anything more than simple concepts.

Guilty as charged.