The BVRLA believes that the UK needs a straightforward, technology-neutral company car tax framework which delivers clarity and certainty to road users. All this can be achieved while protecting tax receipts for the Exchequer.

In its submission, the association reiterates its call for the removal of the out-of-date 3% diesel supplement in benefit-in-kind tax for company cars and fuel.

“This is the one glaring error in the entire company car tax regime,” said BVRLA chief executive, John Lewis.

“It penalises company car users for selecting the very same diesel vehicles that have the lowest CO2 emissions in their class.

“This supplement is well past its use-by date – we know it and so does the government.”

The association wants the coalition government to follow Labour’s policy of providing a three-year advanced view of company car tax bands by announcing the figures for the financial year 2013/14.

It also asks the government to abandon the next increase in fuel duty planned for April and introduce a fuel price stabiliser that will give essential road users a fairer and more settled cost of motoring.

“Our industry has helped the government deliver a successful emissions-based company car tax regime,” said Lewis.

“We want to continue this partnership by delivering a fairer tax system for road users and pointing out some of the Department for Transport’s most glaring inefficiencies.”

The BVRLA has identified a number of areas where it believes the government can cut waste both internally and for vehicle owners.

The advent of continuous registration laws and increasing use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras means that the tax disc is now obsolete.

Abolishing it would save the DVLA over £90m a year in administration costs and eliminate a massive amount of paperwork for fleet owners.

Allowing companies to pay their vehicle excise duty on a multi-year basis would bring similar benefits.

Finally, despite the recent surge in fuel prices, the BVRLA shares the concerns of many in the public sector about the tax-free mileage allowances being paid to employees using their own vehicles for work (known as the ‘grey fleet’).

The current 40p per mile level of Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAP) is too high and encourages people to use their own, often older, less environmentally-friendly vehicles instead of more appropriate means of travel, including public transport, rental or leased vehicles.

“We urge the government to align the rates to a level that represents the incremental cost of using a private car for business, rather than the total cost of ownership,” added Lewis.