Reply to: Hilary Benn defends road tax hike

[Diver]

I'm gonna Get one of these
Tax and MOT exempt

This one

[Peoplesoft bloke]

The odd thing is my old pre 2001 Mondeo is now worth more than a car two years younger than it I think I'll hang on to it for a while. Apart from having to replace the wishbones every 100k miles they are dead cheap to run (and you can easily accommodate a dead hooker rolled up in a carpet in the boot)

It will be interesting to see how this pans out - the differences are more marked for larger cars too - £185 vs £415 for cars registered days apart.

I reckon an early 2001 won't be worth less - it'll just be impossible to sell - after all if that's the market you're in you'd just get the older car wouldn't you?

[Diver]

Well my ahem 4.8 litre V8 costs zero in road tax, but I'm keeping quiet because if they find out, they'll ban it. That said, if I did 500 miles in it last year it was a lot, even fewer this year.

I don't really have a 1981 Ford Bronco XLT 5Ltr. I've got a Vauxhall Frontera 2.5

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Oh yeh! Screw me over just because I drive a 1981 Ford Bronco XLT 5Ltr.

Well my ahem 4.8 litre V8 costs zero in road tax, but I'm keeping quiet because if they find out, they'll ban it. That said, if I did 500 miles in it last year it was a lot, even fewer this year.

[TheBigYinJames]

Oh yeh! Screw me over just because I drive a 1981 Ford Bronco XLT 5Ltr.

The odd thing is my old pre 2001 Mondeo is now worth more than a car two years younger than it I think I'll hang on to it for a while. Apart from having to replace the wishbones every 100k miles they are dead cheap to run (and you can easily accommodate a dead hooker rolled up in a carpet in the boot)

[Diver]

Oh I agree with that totally. The selling of this tax as a green measure is utter bollards and an insult. What it really is is a hike in the engine-size-driven road tax calcs.

Oh yeh! Screw me over just because I drive a 1981 Ford Bronco XLT 5Ltr.

[dang65]

Not exactly. If this is supposed to be a "green tax" on emissions, it would be fairest to tax use rather than ownership. A bloke doing 30k miles in a Ford KA will emit more CO2 in a year than a bloke with a Jag doing 3k miles, yet the VED on the Jag will be zillions. Hence it's just a way of screwing cash out us, nothing at all to do with greenhouse gases.

That's kind of true, but it's probably not a very common situation. And the guy driving 30k miles will be paying rather a lot of extra tax in the form of fuel duty.

I don't think it would make much difference if VED was abolished and transferred purely to fuel so you only paid for use. A hell of a lot of people have very low VED anyway (mine will be 20 quid next year). Even the expensive cars are only paying the equivalent of a couple of tanks full of fuel. The VED system does have the advantage of keeping tabs on most of the vehicles on the road, making sure they're MOT'd and insured (I think that's a pre-requisite of getting a tax disc anyway). So it's worth keeping it going, even if the big variations from one car to another are a bit random.

[TheBigYinJames]

Not exactly. If this is supposed to be a "green tax" on emissions, it would be fairest to tax use rather than ownership.

Oh I agree with that totally. The selling of this tax as a green measure is utter bollards and an insult. What it really is is a hike in the engine-size-driven road tax calcs.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Well, in that case they need the car, so cough up. They seemed to be using the excuse that since they don't drive it, they shouldn't have to pay.

Not exactly. If this is supposed to be a "green tax" on emissions, it would be fairest to tax use rather than ownership. A bloke doing 30k miles in a Ford KA will emit more CO2 in a year than a bloke with a Jag doing 3k miles, yet the VED on the Jag will be zillions. Hence it's just a way of screwing cash out us, nothing at all to do with greenhouse gases.

[TheBigYinJames]

Eh?
Should they pogo-stick the 10k miles then?

Well, in that case they need the car, so cough up. They seemed to be using the excuse that since they don't drive it, they shouldn't have to pay.

[Chugnut]

The ones doing most complaining (on the Parker's site where I work at present) are the ones who drive less than 10k miles a year - my point to them would be why have a car if you don't need one?

Eh?

Should they pogo-stick the 10k miles then?

[TheBigYinJames]

It is a point that except for a small percentage of large CC cars, the tax increases are quite small compared with the running costs.

The ones doing most complaining (on the Parker's site where I work at present) are the ones who drive less than 10k miles a year - my point to them would be why have a car if you don't need one?

[dang65]

14 quid ? More like 245 quid !!!

Approximately 400,000 of the lowest paid (ie. core labour voters) are going to be hit with this massive rise. I detect another U-turn on the horizon !!

It's not a 245 quid rise though is it? For the Ford Focus everyone keeps banging on about the increase is something like 65 quid a year (not 14 quid, I made that figure up). That's about one full tank of diesel isn't it?

The VED for a Ford Focus will be 180 pounds p.a., so if the price of second-hand Ford Foci () plummets by, say, 1800 pounds then it's like buying at the old price but getting ten years of VED thrown in for free.

[Cyberman]

If you can still afford to buy petrol, how can an extra 14 quid a year on VED be a problem? That's about ten litres these days isn't it? I would say the government has done a huge favour to people that can't afford new cars. The dealers won't be able to give away those Ford Focus things soon. So you buy a car for 300 quid that was worth 3 grand last week, thus saving 2700 pounds, which is about 15 years worth of VED.

14 quid ? More like 245 quid !!!

Approximately 400,000 of the lowest paid (ie. core labour voters) are going to be hit with this massive rise. I detect another U-turn on the horizon !!

[expat]

If we all drank a lot more alcohol then we wouldn’t be able to drive and therefore not need so much fuel.

This is not the effect observed in Brazil....