COMPANY car tax should be based on the private use of the vehicle and not the number of business miles clocked up, according to the Association of Car Fleet Operators. The organisation, in its submission to the Government's integrated transport policy consultation document, says it has long supported the notion that personal taxation for private use of an employer-provided vehicle should be based on a proportion of the private use.

ACFO says 'against all logic' the previous Government decreed that the in-place 2,500 and 18,000 business miles tax breaks 'worked well' in the run-up to the 1994 changes in company car tax. As a result ACFO's submission says: 'It is unfair to castigate fleet operators and their drivers for perceived abuses of the business mileage system - albeit at a very low level - when this facility is a legitimate structure of the tax arrangements. ACFO's view is that taxation according to the private use enjoyed is not only intrinsically more equitable, but may - very rapidly - cause drivers to think twice before reaching for their car keys.'

The organisation agrees that the position of road transport in the UK is 'rapidly becoming untenable' and that something must be done, but calls for strategy and not 'short-term tactics'.

But, says ACFO, which has more than 700 members operating in excess of 600,000 vehicles, the Government must bring all elements together to achieve an appropriate balance. And it calls for an 'appropriate level of public funding' supported by private funding.