paul b:
be interesting to get the veiws from those who actually run wagons rather than retired drivers and some bloke who lives in spain
Some bloke who lives in Spain and runs a company with a fleet of more than 70 vehicles 
who also after having spent more than 22 years driving to places that you have never even heard of may in fact just have a small idea of what he is on about.
that’ll be the same bloke who dosn’t think he should pay anything towards the roads his wagons run on!
why not just come on here and say “at the mo i’ve got a to good to be true deal for my wagons going to the uk so i don’t want any change” instead of all this penny drop crap?
this issue is no different to when uk fuel prices were shooting up and foreigners were being allowed to come in with tanks full of fuel that cost half the amount to do uk work, the answer is still the same i.e it dosn’t matter how much it costs to run a wagon as long as EVERYONE pays the same! it’s not rocket science.
paul b:
that’ll be the same bloke who dosn’t think he should pay anything towards the roads his wagons run on!
why not just come on here and say “at the mo i’ve got a to good to be true deal for my wagons going to the uk so i don’t want any change” instead of all this penny drop crap?
without knowing who you are it does SEEM you have a great talent for shooting your mouth off without knowing what you are on about.
There is an old saying that says please engage brain before opening mouth !!! you may like to think about that before putting quotes out that have not been written by the person that you accrediting them to.
Vascoingles:
Coffee I think at last the penny has started to drop
you seem a little confussed but heres the thing although your entitled to your opnion even on a subject that dosn’t effect you in any way, so is everyone else and unfortunately believe it or not other peoples opinions on a certain subject may at times differ from yours, perhaps an idea to consider that before you sugest that everyone is just a thick lorry driver apart from you.
as you say engage brain before mouth.
paul b:
Vascoingles:
Coffee I think at last the penny has started to dropyou seem a little confussed but heres the thing although your entitled to your opnion even on a subject that dosn’t effect you in any way, so is everyone else and unfortunately believe it or not other peoples opinions on a certain subject may at times differ from yours, perhaps an idea to consider that before you sugest that everyone is just a thick lorry driver apart from you.
as you say engage brain before mouth.
meaning that the penny has started to drop that the UK is going to have to end up paying both road tax and any new user charge, exactly like has happened in Germany.
Neither have I said anywhere that anyone is a thick lorry driver although as you appear to jump in with both feet before checking out the water it may possible to make an exception in your case ?
So please before coming up with any more quotes from myself please brush up on your reading skills
I was going to offer my opinions about paying taxes as we pay road tax on our vehicles in spain AND we pay for peages IF we use them AND we pay in france or germany but i think i’ll bottle out in case paul b has a go about me being johnny foreigner too 
What is to stop a law being made so that a foreign commercial driver buys road tax when they enter the uk ?
Tax could be for the DRIVER or the VEHICLE 
I think that most would agree that the UK must introduce a way to ensure fair competition between our counterparts abroad and the UK haulage Industry to secure future jobs and a UK Industry.
Foreign Drivers and Trucks must be allowed into the UK the same as the UK wants to take good abroad, all fair and above board.
The issue and the problem at the moment is that vechicles and drivers from the EU have a distinct advantage over the UK haulage by means of cheaper fuel and no UK Road tax, this is losing the Uk jobs and contracts to over seas operators and in time no UK industry will be left.
The only fair way is to completely re-write the system. Scrap the UK road tax on lorries and make them pay by usage and then charge the same rate to the EU incoming traffic.
It would be even better if the whole of the EU market worked to the same principle, allowing for fair competition between differing Countries.
It can be done, but will it.
ROG:
What is to stop a law being made so that a foreign commercial driver buys road tax when they enter the uk ?
Tax could be for the DRIVER or the VEHICLE
Rog taxing the driver would be against EU regulations concerning freedom of movement and the right to work where you please
johnno:
I think that most would agree that the UK must introduce a way to ensure fair competition between our counterparts abroad and the UK haulage Industry to secure future jobs and a UK Industry.Foreign Drivers and Trucks must be allowed into the UK the same as the UK wants to take good abroad, all fair and above board.
to do this ALL costs concerning the running and operating of commercial vehicles would have to be taken in to account not just road tax and diesel prices but also insurance costs, the registration costs in the various countries as well as the employment laws and costs of employment
johnno:
The issue and the problem at the moment is that vechicles and drivers from the EU have a distinct advantage over the UK haulage by means of cheaper fuel and no UK Road tax, this is losing the Uk jobs and contracts to over seas operators and in time no UK industry will be left.
Did you know that for example the UK and Holland are the only 2 countries in Europe where the trailer does not have to be insured separately ? did you know that employment laws in Spain entitle the driver to either 2 or 3 double monthly wage payments every year ? these are just 2 examples
johnno:
The only fair way is to completely re-write the system. Scrap the UK road tax on lorries and make them pay by usage and then charge the same rate to the EU incoming traffic.
It would be even better if the whole of the EU market worked to the same principle, allowing for fair competition between differing Countries.It can be done, but will it.
a lot of shouting about this lately but the UK was not shouting so much a few years ago when drivers were instructed to bribe French customs officials in order to get over the border with the cheaper UK diesel.
Vascoingles:
paul b:
Vascoingles:
Coffee I think at last the penny has started to dropyou seem a little confussed but heres the thing although your entitled to your opnion even on a subject that dosn’t effect you in any way, so is everyone else and unfortunately believe it or not other peoples opinions on a certain subject may at times differ from yours, perhaps an idea to consider that before you sugest that everyone is just a thick lorry driver apart from you.
as you say engage brain before mouth.meaning that the penny has started to drop that the UK is going to have to end up paying both road tax and any new user charge, exactly like has happened in Germany.
Neither have I said anywhere that anyone is a thick lorry driver although as you appear to jump in with both feet before checking out the water it may possible to make an exception in your case ?
So please before coming up with any more quotes from myself please brush up on your reading skills
but thats the whole point, nobody not even the new government who hasn’t even started to carry out the study yet knows what it’s going to entail, some are just assuming the rfl for hgv’s will remain in place because thats what happened in germany, i’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing because thats impossible to judge until the actual implications and costs are made public but what about this senario, they bring in road user charging for everyone including al the foreign hauliers that visit these shores but they abolish the rfl as well as all the current charges on existing toll roads, bridges and tunnels etc, obviously it still depends on the actual cost but the vast majority of uk hauliers would welcome that, IF it was to pan out that way?
i suspect that the theory, is to keep the rfl and therefore just put another tax on the industry but the tories will quickly realise that to do that then all the prices in the shops will have to jump up to cover the extra haulage costs and caorse a public outcry which they don’t want so the whole idea will be put to bed.
There is not a goverment on this planet that is going to bring a scheme that will reduce tax intake.
The Germans were promised maut reductions which never happened for German vehicles to compensate for their road tax fees, taxing road transport is one of the best ways of getting Joe Public to pay more taxes without their realising it a so called invisible tax.
Lorries are unpopular so a nice campaign getting the public against them always works, usual result is a hike in fuel tax or a user fee of some sort which the public is all for as it keeps smelly lorries off of the roads but they do not realise that they are the ones who will be paying all the extra costs in the end.
but the above senario wouldn’t be a reduction in tax revenue, it would be an increase becuase the thousands of foreign wagons that are currently running on uk roads for free would be paying in to the same pot as their uk counterparts but nothings for nothing, if you charge foreign hauliers they will simply raise the haulage rates as a whole to cover it so the goods they bring in will be more expensive and on it goes.
and everything that is brought in and sold has VAT on it and with every price the amount of VAT just goes up hence the invisible taxing
ROG:
What is to stop a law being made so that a foreign commercial driver buys road tax when they enter the uk ?
Tax could be for the DRIVER or the VEHICLE
EU regulations would stop that, as has been mentioned many times by many people.
paul b:
be interesting to get the veiws from those who actually run wagons rather than retired drivers and some bloke who lives in spain but of coarse unless some one on here has got an inside man feeding him info before it’s made public, no body knows what the road user charge will entail, certainly nobody knows if the current rfl will be kept or abolished so perhaps a little early for any penny to drop and firms to start laying off drivers!
just my opinion of coarse.
Well speaking as a working driver and someone who doesn’t live in Spain do you really think, whether the RFL is abolished for trucks or not, that any new system will work out to the same or less than UK hauliers currently pay. If they go for a vignette style time based system then it may not be too much more, provided the RFL is abolished and I wouldn’t be holding my breath about that. But if they go for a distance based system, which from things I have read is the preferred option and they have been keeping a close eye on the German way of doing it, it is going to cost a hell of a lot more. No distance based road user charge is going to work out to as little as £25 a week, it’s not even likely to be £25 a day. I would not be at all surprised if Toll Collect who operate the German system end up running whatever is introduced here.
Wheel Nut:
paul b:
the peoples mandate? do you seriously believe if there was a national vote, we’d still be part of the eu or would’ve ever gone in, in the first place??
you’ve gota be kiddin me!OK, a bit strong maybe, but certainly a mandate from the manufacturing and transport industry, and people who want to holiday and own property in the EU.
I remember the export currency limits and red and green channels at the airports and seaports, we could only bring goods home up to the value of about £36 and any currency carried was entered in your passport.
We have been members most of my working life and think it has benefited us greatly, allowing us to trade with the rest of the world on a reasonably equal footing. It isn’t our fault we have nothing left to sell, more to do with the unions who eventually closed our car manufacturing industry down. I grew up in Hull and it wasn’t the EU that killed off the fishing industry it was greed from everyone overfishing the stocks, trawlers had to go further afield and that included the Spanish and Norwegians.
I do think we are better in than out and it has been a long time now, I doubt we will be an independent island again. UKIP were a one trick act who wanted to take us out on the 6th May, they got about 900,000 votes and won no seats, even if they had joined with the BNP the count was still only around 1,400,000 votes. Both parties wanted to leave Europe immediately and close the borders, that is why I mentioned the people chose to stay in the EU.
UKIP are fighting hard to gain the last remaining seat in Malton and Thirsk, itself a Tory stronghold.
There’s swings and roundabouts when it comes to Britain’s EU membership but it’s uk workers and employees who are the end payers of VAT not the employers which go’s to pay our dues to the EU.That’s almost 20% of our earnings lost on most things that we need to buy after we’ve paid income tax on what we’ve earnt.However those contributions are’nt levied on the residents of all member states equally and like Germany we pay more than our fair share into the system which is now even worse since we let the ex commie lot in.Whatever the rights or wrongs of the original EU membership referendum in the 1970’s I reckon that EU membership is now getting to be a counterproductive idea bearing in mind that it’s not the Common Market/EEC that we originally joined and would your idea look so good if Germany,Italy,and some of the other founding members decide to pull out leaving us in an ‘EU’ made up mainly of losers like the East Europeans and Greece ?.And on the fishing idea what really gives Spain any moral right to fish in waters off Britain’s coast bearing in mind that we had to swallow getting kicked out of the open sea hundreds of miles from Iceland and I can also remember the ocean going trawler fleet from here that went to the Grand Banks off Nova Scotia and beyond in the 1960’s and 1970’s but the Canadians and the yanks got upset about that too so no more ocean going fishing fleet although it’s not uncommon to see even the Japanese fishing fleet still fishing in many of those areas once frequented by British ocean going trawlers.And as I remember it those unions here built some reasonable cars before the management and government wrecked the industry with high fuel taxation and pay restraint on all British workers so most (not me) went for cheap mickey mouse oriental cars not decent British ones like Jaguar Rover Triumph.Although those management and government lot who wielded the axe and most of those oriental company directors still made sure that they went around in their Jags,Rolls Royces,and other expensive German ones like BMW’s and Mercs.So they could obviously sometimes forget about unionised labour and highly paid workers building their cars when it suited them.
Just operate a ‘Visa’ system for foreign vehicles entering the UK, in the interests of saftey and national security of course, and to stop money laundering, drugs and people smuggling and allsorts
Unfortunately the posters who doubt what has been said have also made several wrong accusations.
Carryfast thinks we pay “nearly 20% in VAT” in the UK. Almost 20% is like saying we actually paid just over 15%.
Here is a recent table of the EU members which I have marked in red the ones who are higher than our current rate of 17.5%
The European Union-
Members of the EU are obliged by European Law to be a part of the European Union Value Added Tax Area. A minimum of 15% VAT must be charged, with the maximum being 25%. Some countries have reduced VAT rates on certain types of goods and services. Unless otherwise stated the currency is the euro.
Austria has a standard VAT rate of 20%, and reduced rates of 12% & 10%. The tax is called USt. (Umsatzsteuer)
Belgium has a standard rate of 21% and reduced rates of 12% & 6%. There are three taxes which can be classified as VAT — BTW, TVA and MWSt.
Bulgaria has a standard VAT rate of 20%, with reduced rates of 0% & 7%. The currency of this country is the Bulgarian lev, which consists of 100 Stotinka to the Lev.
Cyprus has a standard VAT rare of 15% & a reduced rate of 5%.
Czech Republic has a standard VAT rate of 19% & a reduced rate of 9%. The tax is called DPH and the local currency is the Czech Koruna which 100 Haler to the Koruna.
Denmark has a single VAT rate of 25%. The tax is called moms and the local currency is the Danish krone which consists of 100 Ore to the krone.
Estonia charges a standard VAT rate of 18% & a reduced rate of 9%. The tax is called “km” and the local currency is the Estonian Kroon which consists of 100 sent to the kroon.
Finland has a standard VAT rate of 22% plus 2 reduced rates of 17% and 8%. The taxes are called ALV and Moms.
France has a standard VAT rate of 19.9% & reduced rates of 5.5% and 2.1%. The tax is called TVA.
Germany has a standard rate of VAT which stands at 19% & a reduced rate of 7%. The taxes are called MwSt. and US.
Greece has a standard rate of VAT of 19%, with reduced rates of 9% & 4.5% — throughout the Greek Islands this amount is reduced by 30% to 13%, 6% & 3%.
Hungary has a standard VAT rate of 20% & a reduced rate of 5%. The tax is called AFA and the local currency is the Hungarian Forint (Ft), which has 100 Filler to 1 Forint.
Ireland has a standard VAT rate of 21.5%, with reduced rates of 13.5%, 4.8% or 0%. The tax is known as CBL or VAT.
Italy has a standard rate of 20%, with reduced rates of 10%, 6% or 4%. The tax is called IVA.
Latvia has a standard rate of 21% and a reduced rate of 10%. The tax is called PVN and the local currency is the Latvian Lats (Ls) which has 100 Santims to the Lats.
Lithuania has a standard VAT rate of 19%, with reduced rates of 9% or 5%. The tax is called PVM and the local currency is the Lithuanian Litas (Lt) which has 100 Centas to the Litas.
Luxembourg has a standard VAT rate of 15%, with reduced rates of 12%, 9%, 6%, 3%. As in France, the tax is called TVA.
Malta, has a standard VAT rate of 18% & a reduced rate of 5%.
The Netherlands has a standard rate of 19%, with reduced rates of 6% & 0%. The tax is called BTW.
Poland has a standard rate of 22%, with reduced rates of 7%, 3% & 0%. The tax is called PTU and the local currency is the Polish Zloty (zl) which has 100 Grosz to the Zloty.
Portugal has a standard VAT rate 20%, and reduced rates of 12% and 5%. The tax is called IVA.
Romania has a standard VAT rate of 19% & a reduced rate of 9%. The tax is called TVA and the local currency is the Romanian leu (L), with 100 Ban to the Leu.
Slovakia has a standard VAT rate of 19% & a reduced rate of 10%. The tax is called DPH.
Slovenia has a standard rate of 20% & a reduced rate of 8.5%. The tax is called DDV.
Spain has a standard VAT rate of 16%, with reduced rates of 7% and 4%. The tax is called IVA.
Sweden has standard VAT of 25%, with reduced rates of 12% and 6%. The tax is called Moms and the local currency is the Swedish krona with 100 Ore to the Krone.
The United Kingdom has a standard VAT rate of 17.5%, with reduced rates of 5% and 0%.
There you go I helped you again, the bits in blue are the lowest VAT rates in Europe
I haven’t retired, so who can he mean?
I do remember several requests for information about becoming an owner operator 5 years ago, seems the poster didn’t want to listen then either. But no great loss, there are already too many operators & truck on the road.
bit more research required there mate!