car tax

Go here and put your car details in, this will tell you!

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/road-tax/

One reason for me buying my A2 was that my previous car, my A4 3.0 quattro is in the new tax band M, so my car tax was going to have gone up from £200 to £450 - more than I could cope with! Glad to see the A2 1.4TDi is still in band B, so very cheap.
 
Hopefully we might just see some sense in the next 5-10 years and actually tax cars on how they are used rather than just owning them.
Why is it they still don't realise that by taxing people fixed amounts it actually becomes cheaper the more you drive!

Cheers

Jonathan
 
Don't worry, Brown won't be in power in 12 months time, and Labour won't be in power in 2 years time.

I personally would back more tax on petrol if they abolished VED - then it is purely "polluter pays" .
 
ULP said:
I hope so too - I am under no illussions the other shower will be equally as reprihensible but a change is as good as a holiday



That's part of the problem though - the Government conveniently wrap this up in the environment agenda, but let's not be fooled this is purely about revenue raising. Car tax ensures they obtain a certain level of taxation regardless of how people use their cars, which would be at risk if it went on fuel duty and people used their cars less/ more economically.

I think you could argue the fuel escilator introduced by the Tories has already had the result of increasing tax revenue through petrol pricing so one wonders why we still pay VED... But don't wonder for too long as the answers is ball-crunchingly obvious...
Click to expand...


Before veering too far off topic and turning this thread into a political rant (!), my feeling is that the forthcoming by-election in Scotland will trigger a series of events that will see Brown's demise.


Back on-topic (!), one of the reasons I finally decided to seek out the A2 was the change in VED. Also, because of where I live (Richmond), I have to pay a parking permit to the council to park my car, and they changed the system last year so that the cost of the permit increases in relation to the VED - so again I was being taxed extra just for the right to own a bigger engined car, not to actually drive it. By going from Band M to Band B, I will be saving £600 a year just by reducing those two taxes . Frightening.
 
Oh dear, must everyone revert to type and have a good old British moan? And this from a group of people that Government policy has actually benefited!

It seems to me that if people are changing their 3.0 litre A4’s for 1.4 litre A2’s then the policy is working (shame that Audi abandoned any progressive approach and binned the A2 and brought out the Q7 behemoth! though i see they have brought out a 1.4 TFSI A3). I will certainly be bearing this in mind when I change my car next.

And if this is affecting so-called ‘family-cars’ then why not? If someone is persuaded to buy a smaller/cleaner-engined mondeo (or maybe even a focus!?), then how can this be a bad thing? I’m sure that ULP is right and that as cars in general get ‘greener’ there will be a gradual shift of the thresholds downwards, but that would all be in line with encouraging people to buy cleaner and cleaner cars.

The heady days of the free-market when people could do whatever they wanted without a second thought for how it affected everyone else are all over. Governments will have to make some uncomfortable decisions to be able to meet CO2 targets and that is going to affect us all.

I won’t be losing any sleep over poor maligned 4x4 drivers and their personal choices being trodden on. Lets face it, if someone can afford to shell out £40,000 on their Range Rover Sport with bling wheels (which don’t have a hope of ever actually taking them ‘off-road’!) , not to mention insure, service, AND put fuel in the thing, then they can probably afford to spend another few hundred quid to tax it too.

But hey, when the next ‘lot’ get in and they realise they have to start doing things we don’t much like we can always have a good moan about them and then kick them out too….safe in the knowledge that the next ‘lot’ are also going to let us down! In the meantime there is always the Daily Mail to help defend the downtrodden and over-taxed of middle England…
 
Not all 4x4's are £40,000 Range Rovers! In addition to our A2, my wife has a 1300cc Daihatsu Terios and the tax on that is going up by £100.
The bit that most of us object to is the people this really affects are those who already own old cars because they cannot afford new, more economical models. It's not about middle England but the low income family man with a couple of kids who runs a 5 year old Mondeo or Vectra. Many people just dont have the spare cash for this retrospective increse in road tax on top of the added burden of escalating fuel costs.

Cheers Spike
 
Time to have a good old British moan!

Whilst I agree in proncipal with the incentives to get people into less polluting cars (mile for mile), I can't help thinking that even if EVERYONE in the UK gave up cars altogether, we would help to reduce world-wide CO2 outputs by less than one fifth of one percent!

Now, to quote a famous supermarket, every little helps, but rather than generate tax from the already overcharged British motorist, why not just stop the continual rot of the all pervasive nanny state and let people enjoy the freedom which we are all supposed to have?

Before long, only the rich will be able to afford to have motorised personal transport and we'll have regressed 100 years to the start of the last century.

What next - do we all bow and d'off out hats to the local lord (MP!)?

Cheers,

Mike
 
Yes, while it is true that this will retrospectively affect cars up to 7 years old I’m not sure that those on the very lowest incomes in the UK are adversely affected. Up to half of that group don’t run a car at all, and what proportion of those on the lowest incomes who have a car under 7 years old have one of the cars with a VED that is increasing? If we assume it is the 4 in 9 that has been mentioned in the media, that is still a relatively small number.

Of course there are many cheaper 4x4’s than Range Rovers, Q7’s etc but a higher VED may make people think twice when they are buying a second-hand car, maybe they will choose to buy something falling into a lower band? If not then that is personal choice but they will have to live with the (small) extra cost. That may be hard on those people who already own those cars, but they too then have a choice to make.

Any freedoms that we enjoy must surely be balanced against the cost to us all; there is precious little evidence that people make any such consideration when they buy a car (or a whole load of other things!), so there must be a role for governments to try and influence and change behaviour. One of the few ways they can do this is through taxing people more!

I don’t think that is being a nanny state, it is just that someone has to consider the collective good. In this case that is reducing our CO2 emissions and making sure through multilateral agreement that other countries do the same. India and China won’t be committing to reducing CO2 if countries like ours, who have had the good times of economic growth, aren’t showing a similar or perhaps greater commitment.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t for a minute think that curbing car use will solve anything on it’s own; there are a million and one things that people and in particular businesses (not to mention Government departments!) could do to use less energy and emit less CO2. The Government’s role is to encourage them to do it.

Right, my moan over…! Is good to have a proper bit of debate about these things though!?

Cheers

David
 
Changing TAX bands on cars already made is pure, undiluted revenue generation. It has nothing to do with "green" plans.
These cars are already made and are sat on someones driveway/street.
They won't go away or be scrapped much sooner because of this tax. They will (have?) lose a chunk of their value. But for many lower-middle income families (£25,000 or less) then an 01 or 02 or 03 plate car will have just become afordable. To be taxed at stupid levels just for "owning" these cars is really sick and I hope Brown and his crew get booted out for it.
By all means tax fuel to the hilt to curb usage. By all means encourage new purchasers to buy smaller greener cars, but to retrospecively "stiff" people that have bought 5 year old cars is wrong in every way.

Personally I am OK.

I have a 1998 2 litre V40 as well as the A2. The volvo hardly gets used (just for trips with the kids and moving mountain bikes). But the reason I use it less is the price of fuel. If I had to pay £400 to tax it then I think it would be got rid of!

Anyone selling a Y plate 3 litre landcruiser?
 
oh, and climate change is real.
Its happening and saying "well theres no point in doing x as it is only 0.00000001% of world emmisons is a lazy, badly guided answer".

I think it is true that we are probably too late to stop all climate change. The main factor that will stuff the planet is population growth, and increase in consumption per capita in china and india.

In the west (UK, Europe, US, Canada, Oz) we use way too much resources per person. This has to be reduced. I reckon it will be reduced more due to scarcicity and cost than to save the planet.
If you think of fuel...its only since the price of diesel doubled that the m62 round Brighouse has started flowing a little at 8am on a morning. People are using cars less.

So we do need to engineer solutions that allow us each to use a lot less resource. Whether this will "save" the planet, I have my doubts. But the fact is that without starting now we will hit a brick wall of price and scarcity of energy and materials.
 
I don’t think anybody is going to be taxed at ‘stupid’ levels for owning a relatively modest, and relatively modern car. Look at the kind of car that falls into the higher bands:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...-will-be-charged-under-the-new-tax-bands.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...-will-be-charged-under-the-new-tax-bands.html

and this is from the Telegraph, who seem to be casting themselves as defenders of the poor (Lamborghini) driver.

We’ve had a system based on CO2 emissions since 2001 so why wouldn’t changes to VED affect cars made and bought since then? If it wasn’t retrospective then we would have a third system of charging in operation and people would complain about the Government over-complicating it all even further. Also don’t forget that retrospective changes have benefited A2 TDI owners.

Chb I agree with your second post but not with your first. I think people are using their cars less and that is probably largely to do with the cost of fuel. But to those who argue that it would be fairer to put all the tax on the fuel and do away with VED, this would be an even less fair system. Regressive or consumption taxes like VAT and Fuel Duty have a greater effect on those with less money; people still have to make the same journeys and buy the same goods to maintain their lifestyle, but someone with a lower income ends up spending a greater portion of their income on these things as the tax goes up.
 
Can somebody please explain why the climate only started changing on 1 May 1997 as a result of those selfish car drivers amongst us? Funny, but I thought the climate had been changing/evolving for the past umpteen million years of the planets existance? I didn't realise how wrong all that education in my school was, ie about the British isles having once been covered by jungle and inhabited by dinosaurs and that 3000 years ago crops were grown on the Shetland Isles that require a warmer climate than we have today....funny old world. All that archeological evidence turns out to be so wrong...

I don't suppose Al Gore will be publishing a book about how this years average global temperatures are lower than last year or the year before and its all because we drive our cars too much whilst he jets around the world lecturing everyone on the evils of air transport and the environmental damage it does.....The Al Gorists are becoming as bad as any religious fanatics with the way they will not allow objective scientific debate.
 
ULP:

Well I don’t feel good about the tax band the A2 currently falls into! I don’t feel anything about it, that’s the point. And I dare say that in a few years time I won’t actually own an A2…

There is no evidence to suggest that the World’s resources can’t match the needs of the World’s populations either at current levels or in the future. There is a just a gross inequality on how those resources are distributed and gross over-consumption in the West; for people in rich countries like ours to moan about paying extra to tax their precious cars and reduce their carbon emissions is just a bit much when some people live (and die) on next to nothing at all.

We have the luxury of being able to exercise choice, an imperfect choice but choice nonetheless. So while it may be hard on those people who have previously bought a 2.0 litre mondeo or a vectra to see their secondhand value reduced further they do still retain some choice. (there is nothing new in the idea that cars cost money, both to run and in depreciation…and since when did mondeo’s or vectra’s or similar cars ever retain very much of their value after a few years?)

As for 4x4’s, it may well be true that some are ‘needed’ by their owners for the purposes of their work. There is no issue with this. The vast majority of 4x4’s however are bought as ‘family’ transport to squeeze around already overcrowded city streets (and car parks!). They use more resources to produce and to run than conventionally sized cars, not to mention being more dangerous for other car users, cyclists and pedestrians.

Oh and I was being ironic about the Daily Mail….i’m sorry but type is exactly what was being reverted to. I don’t see why someone can’t come on here and say something positive, or at least a little less doom-laden?

Adrian888:

You seem to be suggesting that climate change is some sort of confection that New Labour has dreamt up!? Well their powers of persuasion know no bounds! Seeing as virtually every country in the world has accepted scientific evidence that the climate is changing at unprecedented levels and this is largely man-made. Nobody is suggesting that the Earth hasn’t evolved and changed over millions of years, it is the speed of change and that the changes are man-made that presents the threat to the way we live our lives (not the future of the planet itself). Oh and I’ve never seen Al Gore’s film!
 
Man made global warming is NOT scientific fact. There are plenty of scientists who disagree. It is simply a scientific lead 'religion' hi-jacked by politicains as a way of controlling the masses and brainwashing/bullying anyone who dares disagree. It is fact amongst those scientists who otherwise would not get any government funding perhaps. We have only been accurately recording weather and climate for ' 300 YEARS AND HAVE ONLY HAD SATELLITES to record weather for 40 years so how can we say it is manmade climate change? FACT The ice coverage at the Antarctic increased when comparing winter 06/07 and 07/08 as recorded by satellite. FACT Many parts of middle east ( Isreal/Lebanon) and China had record snow falls and cold spells last winter. FACT Even this government agrees with the report published early this year which states the weather and temperatures over the next 10 years will not show any sign of temperature increase or unusual patterns.

And as for insulating my un-insulated home perhaps someone would like to show me how to go about insulating a 140 year old property built with solid walls? At least I am re-cycling! And i resent being accused of having my head in the sand simply because I question the validity of so-called scientific fact! Rant over and apologies for hi-jacking the thread and to anyone I have offended! I will now await the climate change thought police to arrest me.........
 
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