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Comment by martin-adams | Hacker News Reader

It's very odd they used the term Road Tax. It's always been known as Vehicle Tax for the very reason you've pointed out. Hence why you don't need to pay tax to ride a bicycle on the road.

The other area they are losing out not mentioned in the article is Benefit in Kind tax for EVs used as company cars. At some point, that will also need to end and be more in alignment with ICE vehicles.

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It's a handy dog whistle so we know they are part of the car lobby

edit: spelling

or it could simply be that the commonly used term for Vehicle Excise Duty is "road tax" (even if it's technically incorrect)

not everything is a conspiracy

commonly used by people who disingenuously use it's etymology to imply that all 'road users' (by which they mean cyclists) rather than 'vehicle users' should pay it

I don't see anything in the article that suggests the author wants that to happen?

these hysterical responses say more about you then the people you're demonising

I dont think a carsalesman is going to feel overly demonised by being reffered to as part of the car lobby. He does know better than to conflate road and vehicle tax however.

when you can't get the name of the duty right (it's a duty, not a tax), it seems a bit rich to complain about others getting it wrong

let alone accusing them of dog-whistling

When you try and look for dog whistles everywhere the world becomes a useless cacophony of high pitched screeching. Road tax and vehicle tax are used pretty much interchangeably and I wouldn't read into the word choice any more than I'd read into the results of the coin toss.

*listen

You're being pedantic. Odds are your brain parsed the article from visual input not audio. It could go either way depending on which linguistic hard line you want to take.

You also don't need to pay it to own a vehicle. You are allowed to own a vehicle without paying this tax as long as you promise not to drive it on the road (SORN). So by that logic it's not a vehicle tax either.

Also, bicycles are vehicles. So surely they should pay Vehicle Tax as well?

A more accurate name would be the "Using a Motorized Vehicle on the Public Road Tax". Let's abbreviate it by dropping all but the last two words. :)

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