The RHA has made detailed duty de-coupling suggestions to the Treasury in its Pre-Budget submission. It calls for:
- No further increase in fuel duty for trucks.
- The establishment of a 'road freight fuel duty', allowing general increases in fuel duty to be rebated to transport operators through the VAT mechanism.
- A 5p/litre increase in petrol duty complemented by a 5p/litre reduction in diesel duty to achieve price parity at the pump and maintain the Treasury's net fuel tax income.
It also says the Treasury has not "researched the [tax] issue", and points out that hauliers are suffering "exceptionally long delays for payment... with some leading publicly-quoted companies among the worst payers".
In other areas, the RHA calls for VOSA to crackdown on overloaded foreign vehicles, and for the government to look again at introducing a Euro-vignette daily charge and for VED rates to remain unchanged.