Talk:Road tax

Is there any country that uses this term?

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."[1]PeterEastern (talk) 05:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• 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)

• 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)

• 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)

• It has more incoming links now. - Fayenatic (talk) 08:32, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• 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)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. It appears that there are objections to the current name, but other discussions on the talk page are searching for an answer to how to rename. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:43, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Road tax → Annual vehicle tax — Road tax is an informal term used only by the British; this article is very poorly referenced, possibly partly because of the obscure title. PeterEastern (talk) 07:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I note that the scope of the article is international, and agree that the current title seems inappropriate. But Annual vehicle tax may be even worse in terms of WP:NC. Other suggestions? Andrewa (talk) 14:05, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, much worse. For one thing the tax isn't necessarily annual, and for another the name is ambiguous and can be confused with other vehicle taxes including the Vehicle purchase tax. The name needs to be generic and unambiguous. The article is about tax payable before a vehicle can be put onto the public road, so I favour Vehicle road tax or even Vehicle public road tax. -- de Facto (talk). 14:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps merge instead to vehicle registration? Andrewa (talk) 14:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• I notice that it is also suggested that Vehicle registration certificate be merged into vehicle registration. Makes a lot of sense to be personally to combine the three and then put work into bringing the standard up from where it is. PeterEastern (talk) 14:17, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• It may be logical to merge vehicle registration certificate and vehicle registration, but I don't think that road tax belongs there for the reasons I give below. -- de Facto (talk). 14:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• I don't support merging into vehicle registration because, in the UK at least, the road tax is purely a road use tax and not associated with registration, other than that generally, an unregistered vehicle cannot use the road. In fact in the UK there is also a registration tax, payable to register a vehicle. -- de Facto (talk). 14:50, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• I am not really fussed either way but merging articles does seem to make a lot of sense. Could be worth looking at inward links for the various articles to see how popular the they are, road tax is not referenced as much as it should be (which implies the name isn't right) and its usage stats are also pretty low. Also, it is not a tax on roads or indeed a tax to pay for roads, it is a tax to discourage people from owning cars. To me it is a vehicle tax not a road tax. PeterEastern (talk) 15:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• Vehicle road use tax isn't necessarily related to vehicle registration, so a merge of those is illogical; take the vignette system for example... You buy a road tax sticker in a post office and stick it in the car window to use the road - it's nothing to do with regestration at all. As for your point about the use that the tax money is put to; that may vary by jurisdiction too. Some places may well use it to pay for roads - who knows. In the UK model (VED) vehicles are only subject to the tax if they are to used on the public road, hence it isn't simply a vehicle tax, it is a road use tax. The tax name rarely reflects the use that the proceeds are put to - think of: "income tax", "fuel tax", "property tax", "value added tax", "national insurance", "window tax", "purchase tax", "alcohol duty". The names are more generally related to the activity that attracts them. Road use tax or Vehicle road use tax perhaps? -- de Facto (talk). 15:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The immediate problem seems to be that road tax is an inappropriate name for the article as it stands, either in structure or content. Possibly, some previous edits which made the article global in nature, rather than restricted to countries which actually have some form of road tax, were not a good idea. But in any case, we now have three options:

1. We can rename the article to match the material, OR
2. We can rewrite the article to match the name, OR
3. We can move any useful material elsewhere, and leave this article as a redirect but with significant history which we must preserve assuming any of the material is kept.

In deciding, probably the first question is whether we want an article named road tax. Regardless of the current state of the article, is this an encyclopedic topic? I'm thinking that it is. Andrewa (talk) 03:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Rename to something. This is not a road tax since it is not a tax levied to maintain roads, which in many places have nothing to do with car ownership. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 06:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Would you use the same argument to have the fuel tax article renamed - as it isn't levied to maintain fuel? This tax is levied on the use of roads in a vehicle as fuel tax is levied on the use of fuel in a vehicle. Suggest a name you would support, or comment on one of my suggestions above - we are trying to build a consensus on a new name. -- de Facto (talk). 06:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Just to say that the use of the term 'road tax' in the UK is contentious and contains implied POV, it is generally favoured by motoring organisations and continues to be used by them and also in some official publications. It is however being challenged by http://ipayroadtax.com/ because in the UK it is common for drivers to say 'I pay road tax' to cyclists and pedestrians as if drivers have some greater right to use the road that pedestrians and cyclists. As long as the title makes it clear that it is a tax on the use of motor vehicles on public roads then I will be happy. The tax is closely aligned to vehicle registration hence my suggestion that they be merged. In the UK the Roads Act 1920 called it 'excise duties on mechanically-propelled vehicles and on carriages' and the official name in the UK currently is Vehicle excise duty. PeterEastern (talk) 17:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Is that why you suggested the rename - to attempt to influence that discussion? The name of a Wiki article should reflect the article content, not be used to advocate one side of a particular political argument. This is a global generic article about taxes charged to put a vehicle on the public road, not an article related to vehicle registration or the UK situation. Use your favourite web search tool to see number of hits road tax gets compared to any other likely terms for it. I suggested Vehicle road tax or Vehicle public road tax. We've seen why your suggestion of Vehicle tax isn't appropriate. Do you have opinions about mine or do you have an alternative suggestion to offer? -- de Facto (talk). 22:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• I think it has been a useful discussion so far, but would be good to bring to a conclusion now. Should we have a vote on your proposals and any others that people want to put forward? I would probably support one of yours btw. Together with any suggestion should be an indication of the proposed scope of the article if it is to change from the current one. If you agree DeFacto you may like to create a new section with a structure and your proposals. PeterEastern (talk) 07:28, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

• There still appears to me to have been absolutely no evidence presented that road tax isn't the right article name for something. The two arguments seem to be: (1) that there's a better name for what is commonly called road tax and so Wikipedia should promote this more correct name; and (2) that some of the material currently in the article isn't about road tax. Even taken together these don't make a valid case for a move in terms of Wikipedia policy. In terms of our very most basic, core policies, the first isn't a valid reason for anything here at Wikipedia, as DeFacto has pointed out. The second might possibly be part of a case for a move, but it's unlikely, depending on the article history and what other articles already cover this off-topic material. Andrewa (talk) 21:08, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I had three reasons for raising the issue initially, 1) The term only appears to only be used by the British as an colloquial term for Vehicle excise duty 2) It is not a general road tax it is a tax on certain classes of vehicle that use public roads, 3) The continued use of the term 'road tax' is contested in the UK as demonstrated by the http://ipayroadtax.com/ website so the title does not meet WP:NC. Personally I have a strong preference to keep the scope of the article as it is and to move it to Vehicle road tax as proposed by DeFacto. PeterEastern (talk) 08:03, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• Responses by number: 1) The term is generic - what else could you call a tax applied for use of the road? 2) It is a tax on some road use - as income tax is a tax on some income. 3) Which particular part of the policy does it conflict with? -- de Facto (talk). 09:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• You are the expert on Wikipedia policies not me;) However... I would suggest that WP:NPOV is probably the one, which states 'Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context.' I think I have already demonstrated that it is considered to be a polarizing term in the UK. PeterEastern (talk) 09:58, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• The title isn't a view though, it's a fact. Look in the OED - road tax is there. You might have a case if the title was Unjust road tax or somesuch. It is a tax. It is a tax on road use. -- de Facto (talk). 10:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• I am not disagreeing with Vehicle road tax (your suggestion). Definitions for 'road tax' seem to refer to the UK or GB. (including the OED). Here are some definitions. OED: 'noun Brit. a periodic tax payable on motor vehicles using public roads.'[2] Google: 'In Britain, road tax is a tax paid every year by the owners of every motor vehicle which is being used on the roads.'[3] MacMillan dictionary: 'money that people in the UK must pay if they want to drive their vehicles on public roads'[4].

• You agree that the term isn't POV then, and doesn't conflict with the naming policy - it is a factual term in widespread use? -- de Facto (talk). 10:45, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• No exactly... I am saying it is controversial informal term in use in one country. PeterEastern (talk) 11:06, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

• Yet you removed the cited content saying so! I propose to revert that. I would have no objection to moving most of today's remaining article to something like List of annual vehicle taxes, but there should be at least a short article at "road tax" about the usages of that term. - Fayenatic (talk) 22:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Going by the current content of the article, I suggest renaming to something more generic and obvious, like Vehicle taxation. I would also support Road tax then becoming a redirect to Vehicle Excise Duty, if we can achieve some kind of consensus that this term is not widely used outside the UK. Letdorf (talk) 11:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Neat idea, but other countries do use the term, at least informally, e.g. United States, India, Nigeria, Cyprus, Barbados. - Fayenatic (talk) 13:21, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Fayenatic - Feel free to reinstate the relevant content that I removed, however to be clear I didn't 'remove' any content, I did however 'move' the detail that related only to the UK VED tax to the relevant UK related article (and I also moved all the non-uk summary from the UK VED article to this article. Also, thanks for the examples of other countries using the term - very helpful. Also, to further the discussion, here is a useful article describing why the term is contentious in the UK (following an article in Which? magazine). Which? prints 'road tax' error; won't correct it. PeterEastern (talk) 14:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Peter, that article is full of fallacies. The tax did not disappear 74 years ago (or whenever) - it is still exactly the same, and even still has the same official name - "Vehicle Excise Duty" - today. All that changed 74 years ago is that the government came clean on the fact that the tax was no longer being dedicated (hypothecated) to road building and maintenance. The name that is no longer valid is "road fund licence", the former name of the 'tax disc'. Let's have a table of well known UK taxes - do you spot the naming pattern? 'Road tax' follow all the normal conventions.:

Some UK taxes

Charged on	Common name	Official name	Spent on
Road use	Road tax	Vehicle excise duty	General government expenditure
Income	Income tax	Income tax	General government expenditure
Property use	Property tax	Council tax	Local government expenditure
Purchases	Purchase tax	Value Added Tax	General government expenditure
Fuel	Fuel tax	Fuel duty	General government expenditure
Alcohol	Alcohol tax	Alcohol duty	General government expenditure
Tobacco tax	Tobacco duty	Tobacco	General government expenditure-- de Facto (talk). 14:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

-- de Facto (talk). 14:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It is not charged on road use, if you walk on the road, or bicycle on it, is it? It's charged on the use of a motorvehicle of a certain class... 70.29.208.247 (talk) 04:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Currently in the UK, maybe. Like income tax is only charged on certain income - but is still called "income" tax or like purchase tax is only levied on some purchases. A tax which only applies to road use is a road tax, albeit more specifically a motor vehicle road use tax. -- de Facto (talk). 06:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Invalid request for move?

Possibly because of the incorrect use of the temple, the notice of the request for move of this page has come up in the "Time could not be ascertained" section of the Wikipedia:Requested moves page, and without the "short reason", and so may not come to the attention of anyone watching there. I'm not sure what a correction of the syntax in the template call would do - whether it would fix this problem, or confuse the automated process, so I have not tried it. The correct syntax, as noted on the Template:movereq page is: {{subst:move|Newpagename}} Short reason. -- de Facto (talk). 07:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks DeFacto, I have adjusted the request - hopefully that won't send the system wild, and possibly it will work properly now. Do note my comment in the previous section in relation to your proposal for a more general article (which I sould have posted before doing the move request. PeterEastern (talk)

• Peter, I've put this back in its own section because it made a mess of the entry on Wikipedia:Requested moves. Are you sure that you change dthe template syntax - it looks unchanged to me in your edit? I've just changed it to how I believe it should be - let's see what happens now :-) -- de Facto (talk). 08:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• Makes sense, thanks - if it still isn't listed properly and we get no input from other people then I suggest we just get on with what we think is best. PeterEastern (talk) 09:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe the automated process was getting confused as the move requested wasn't signed and this is where the time and date is taken from and also so it knows where the request ends. I've now signed the move request (as PeterEastern at the appropriate time) so hopefully things will sort themselves out the next time the bot swings by. Dpmuk (talk) 09:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks. PeterEastern (talk) 11:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not 'Vehicle road tax'?

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.[5] and [6].

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)

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)

• 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 [7] and [8]) 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)

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)

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)

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).

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)0

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)

Comment: It looks like a moot point, since recent discussion seems to be to leave it where it is, but just to point out: "an informal term used only by the British" (quoting from WP:RM) is no reason to move it. Per both WP:ENGVAR and WP:COMMONNAME, if it is a name commonly used by the British (even if only colloquially), and a Brit began the article, then it's a perfectly legitimate article title. --DeLarge (talk) 16:03, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

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)

UK 2014 changes - inaccuracy

"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)

United Kingdom: 2015 Budget Ring-Fencing

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)

Could this article be split into smaller articles?

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)