The Road Fund was a British Government fund designated to pay for the building and maintenance of the United Kingdom road network. Its income came originally from vehicle excise duty, until that ceased to be hypothecated for roads use in 1936, and then from government grants. It was created by the Roads Act 1920 and Finance Act 1920, and was wound up in Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act of 1955.
The Road Fund is notable as one of the few beneficiaries of hypothecated taxation in British history, and is the root of a popular misconception that vehicle excise duty (especially when referred to as road tax) is still hypothecated. Between 1920 and 1936 the vehicle licence (tax disc) was officially known as the "Road Fund Licence", a term which is still in colloquial use today.
Read more about Road Fund: History, Winding Up, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words road and/or fund:
“Telephone poles were matchsticks, put there to be snapped off at a whim. Dogs trotting across the road were suddenly big trucks. Old ladies turned into moving—vans. Everything was too bright, but very funny and made for my delight. And about half a mile from my long liquid breakfast I turned carefully down a side street and parked, and sat beaming happily through the tannic fog for about an hour, remembering how witty we all had been, how handsome and talented ... [ellipsis in original]”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“I am advised that there is an unexpended balance of about $45,000 of the fund appropriated for the relief of the sufferers by flood upon the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and I recommend that authority be given to use this fund to meet the most urgent necessities of the poorer people in Oklahoma.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)