Road Transport Forum Report

Now that the Government has outlined its changes to the Road User Charges system it’s a good time to compare what the Forum set out to achieve when it started campaigning for RUC reform with what the Government says it is going to do.

Right from the start the Forum has repeatedly hammered a handful of key points. And we backed our stance with some well-founded research to give it added weight and credence.

The Forum’s position has been that the current RUC system is too complex and imposes onerous deadweight compliance costs on trucking operators and enforcement requirements on the Government. The system encourages systematic RUC evasion which means that honest operators are paying more than they should.

So where have we got to? The Forum wanted a diesel tax and vehicle registration system to replace the RUC system because it would be simpler, it would sweep away the whole apparatus of enforcing RUC compliance – saving massive amounts of time and money – and it would virtually eliminate evasion.

The Government decided to stay with a RUC system. In part this was because that is what the independent review group recommended, but also because the Government says setting up a tax rebate system for non-road diesel use would create much the same problems that the Forum identified with the RUC system.