New road tax rules...

Stevepage

This won't afffect any one unless they buy a new car after april.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/88361/tax-disc-changes-everything-you-need-to-know-about-uk-road-tax

What a fucking rip off

strtdv

Cars that are hit hardest are diesel cars, which are virtually all Band A-D under the current system. This probably fits with longer term plans to reduce/phase out diesel.

Ironically it means that buying a used car with a ridiculous petrol engine will get a lot cheaper, as instead of paying £500-600/year  you'll be paying the same £140 as everyone else.

They've kept the rate 0 for electric cars though, which is probably a smart move.


What precipitated this problem isn't the "unsustainable" increase in the number of low VED rate cars on the road, it's the fact that the recent change to VED (that it doesn't transfer with the car), has caused a huge increase in the number of cars being driven untaxed, and has caused a huge drop in revenue, so is almost entirely the governments own fault.

boogieman

Getting rid of visible tax discs was a really stupid idea too. Anyone could see if a car was taxed or not previously. 

crunchman

It at least gets rid of the current stupidness that diesels are a lot cheaper to tax than petrols while giving off lots more NOx and particulates.

They ought to add an additional £50 surcharge for diesels but it's a step in the right direction.

Stevepage

That was all the governments fault too. Tax incentives amoung other things for people to switch to diesels because of lower cO2 emissions. 

Garthy

Pity this one isn't retrospective like the last change. 

olafgarten

That's terrible, I just bought a Hybrid Yaris thinking I can save on road tax, good thing it's from last year.

Sporky

Garthy said:

Pity this one isn't retrospective like the last change. 

I'm not keen on retrospective changes - it'd be punishing people for buying what you told and encouraged them to buy. Bit of a con trick.

olafgarten said:

That's terrible, I just bought a Hybrid Yaris thinking I can save on road tax!

If it's registered before April then the current rules apply, not the new ones.

CHRISB50

Garthy said:

Pity this one isn't retrospective like the last change. 

I'm not. My road tax currently costs me nowt. Under the new banding I'd have to pay.

Paying nothing was one of the main reasons for choosing the piece of crap that I drive around in. It would be like the government mocking me. The bastards.

rlw

Great.  Still £240 pa for the 5.5.....................

Bidley

Cool so the government have decided diesels are bad and the owners of which should be penalised, after years of incentivising ownership of diesel cars. What a bunch of cunts.

Sambostar

Just don't insure or tax your car and drink and drive. Remember there's  no  space left in prison.

ICBM

Although some of us didn't buy diesels even when they were incentivised, since we never liked the nasty pollutive things in the first place…

It's hardly fair to blame this government for the mistakes of a previous one of a different party, either. (Though it is tempting.)

Something has to be done about the diesel problem, and any attempt to not penalise existing diesel users in any way is going to perpetuate it. You've either got to tax the cars or the fuel more or people will just buy old diesels and run them into the ground.

Bidley

Regardless of how you spin it, incentivising it via tax, then doing a 180 when it's well and truly ingrained is shitty. It shouldn't have been incentivised in the first fucking place.

Congrats on your gold star for not buying a diesel though.

DiscoStu

My current tax is £20, which was one of the persuading factors when buying my car. It would now be £140. 

ICBM

Bidley said:

Regardless of how you spin it, incentivising it via tax, then doing a 180 when it's well and truly ingrained is shitty. It shouldn't have been incentivised in the first fucking place.

Of course it shouldn't, but its too late now. The only thing you can do is to disincentivise the ownership and use of them. Governments have to reverse the policies of their predecessors sometimes, and some people are always hit. Why should cars be exempt?

Bidley said:

Congrats on your gold star for not buying a diesel though.

Personally I think taxing the fuel would be fairer because it's the use not the ownership which is the bigger problem. Currently diesel is taxed far too lightly relative to petrol even on a carbon-content basis anyway - it should be a minimum of 16% more expensive just to take account of that.

Fairest of all would be to offer a scrappage scheme for diesels as well, but that will cost money.

ICBM

Sambostar said:

Just don't insure or tax your car and drink and drive. Remember there's  no  space left in prison.

Missed this earlier. Is that why they let you out early?

Bidley

ICBM said:

Bidley said:

Regardless of how you spin it, incentivising it via tax, then doing a 180 when it's well and truly ingrained is shitty. It shouldn't have been incentivised in the first fucking place.

Of course it shouldn't, but its too late now. The only thing you can do is to disincentivise the ownership and use of them. Governments have to reverse the policies of their predecessors sometimes, and some people are always hit. Why should cars be exempt?

I don't know, I didn't say they should be. I'm saying the whole thing is stupid.

ICBM

Bidley said:

I don't know, I didn't say they should be. I'm saying the whole thing is stupid.

I agree that the original decision to incentivise diesel was stupid - blame Gordon Brown for that. But given that a serious mistake was made which has now got to be fixed, what are you going to do? The government can't afford to pay to scrap every diesel car sold in the last fifteen years. The only sensible thing you can do is to reverse the incentivisation in a way that encourages less people to buy diesels and those that have them already to try to use them less and/or consider getting rid of them sooner.

Diesel owners have had the benefit of fifteen years of lower fuel costs compared to petrol car owners too, so it goes both ways.

sinbaadi

I have a free-to-tax Fiesta and to be honest it never should have been free .  None of them should be any less than a nominal £40 or £50 quid, and that includes all-electric.  

Bidley

ICBM said:

The government can't afford to pay to scrap every diesel car sold in the last fifteen years.

Just as fucking well! They'd have to replace the cars like-for-like - unless you think the government coming to your house, taking your car and destroying it is acceptable

I know why it's happening, but the whole situation is dumb as shit. "Oh, you know that car we purposefully made more economical for you to run? Well now it's not. Gutted lol"