But not clean electricity. The gas is taxed for the environmental reasons: it is endangering our planet. I don't know of any government taxing clean electricity.
Then why was it highly taxed before carbon emissions were considered a problem at all? I can tell you: because it's easy to tax (very much like estates).
Fuel duty which has nearly always been on fuel, but left in place and manipulated as a tax on hydrocarbons - £0.5795 per litre
VAT is then added on top of this price, which has been around since 1973 - currently 20%
Currently there is no tax on electricity used for road vehicles, but we do pay VAT on our Electricity bills so it's fair to assume that the government isn't losing out a huge amount of money by people switching to electric vehicles.
It's not so much the wonderful tax income, but the necessary acquiring of funds in order to maintain the roads.
This is paid by taxes on fuel. Somebody has to pay for new roads and maintenance, when that string of revenue falls away.
Herearound fuel taxes are earmarked for roads and potentially public transport projects. It can't be siphoned off into the general revenue bucket.
At the end state will tax electricity same way to keep this wonderful tax income. No way to have cheap fuel, hydrogen, gas, etc will be taxed same way due to political reasons.
I don’t see a chance to ditch my car having family. It is clean, clean children seat, toys for travel, snacks for next trip, some water, some bad weather clothing. It is available all the time for me, no waiting, known condition.