There are only two things certain in life: death and taxes!
However you are under no obligation to arrange your affairs in a manner that requires you to pay more tax. George Osborne got annoyed with
George Osborne got annoyed with people being in the low tax brackets for car tax so he changed it so all cars pay £140 a year and those with an RRP over £40k pay £450 a year (for the . It went back to its original form as a "tax to use the road" with the CO2 component only applying to the first year.
Later there was a climb-down and BEVs were exempted. However VED revenue has been falling as a percentage of GDP:
As more people buy BEVs the tax revenue from VED will decline further, and no-doubt changes will be made. Maybe only the most efficient BEVs will be exempt? However VED has historically carried through the vehicle's life so it is likely that BEVs bought now will continue to be zero-rated for their entire lives. However VED raises less than £7bn annually so is small potatoes in the scheme of things.
Now fuel duty is a stickier subject. It raises c. £30bn annually and is likely to fall sharply as the transition to BEVs continues. The challenge the government has is that lots of BEVs are charged at home. This is like filling your car with heating oil to avoid tax, but it isn't possible to dye the electrons in your BEV battery. Ideas for road tolls or pay-per-mile are all very expensive to implement and involve privacy concerns.
Maybe we'll have to find other ways to fund schools/hospitals and the rest, other than taxing car ownership and use?