Gordon Gekko
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If you can verify someone's VAT number online without breaching data protection rules, then surely it can be done for someone's insurance number?
....So it's not only an Irish thing.
Not so simple. This would shift the balance of the tax burden from private individuals to industry - a tuck/van/taxi/rental burns a lot more diesel per year than a commuter car. It would also tend to promote cross-border fuel shopping and smuggling.Subsume road tax into the cost of fuel. Extra 1 or 2c per litre. Simple.
A few years ago I would have agreed, but then I saw LA.Yep. Motorists are treated as a cash cow by government. The current system is manifestly and very obviously unfair. It fails at a basic level.
Not so simple. This would shift the balance of the tax burden from private individuals to industry - a tuck/van/taxi/rental burns a lot more diesel per year than a commuter car. It would also tend to promote cross-border fuel shopping and smuggling. ....
A few years ago I would have agreed, but then I saw LA.
Single-commuter cars, and the landscape they create, are a blight and an economic disaster.
I can't think of a better way to discourage their ownership and use than tax.
I'm not sure either, but I know that when you reach into somebody's pocket you usually get their attentionBut I'm not sure if I agree with your view that tax is the best or only way to discourage their ownership.
....On a side point, I as quite disturbed to see a recent report that around 8,000 people were driving whilst disqualified. Every one of those must, by definition, also be driving without insurance as motor insurance is not valid if the driver is disqualified.
We shouldn't forget the absolute joke penalties handed out for not having insurance... How can you not give someone a custodial sentence for this???
Uninsured driver reversed towards garda patrol car: A young man who stopped in the middle of a dual carriageway, switched off his car lights and reversed towards an oncoming garda patrol car has been given a three-month suspended sentence for a second no-insurance offence... Judge McHugh imposed the suspended sentence and disqualified him from driving for four years for having no insurance, and convicted and fined him €250 for the driving without due care and attention offence.
http://www.herald.ie/news/courts/uninsured-driver-reversed-towards-garda-patrol-car-35348501.html