I was thinking of changing my 15 plate 5 Series Touring only done 38k miles. I was looking for another 5 Series 18 plate sort of 12 months old, well blow me when looking at the Car Tax could not believe it was going to cost £145 plus £320 per year for Five years because the cars list price was over 40k.
I have always contract hired so VED was built in, it’s come as a shock, so much so I keep my money in me pocket. My wife has the a new GLC so me changing is not imperative.
That's a bit of a killer.
Just paid £30 for my 16 reg BMW 420.
I think they changed all the tax rates in 2017..so cars registered after that date get hammered!
I think my 10 year old Honda is £555 next renewal, I try to think of it as £10 a week, or a couple of pints worth.
Yup looks that way if it’s over 40k you are hammered, well they are not going to hammer me. I really like the 5 as it’s the a real Luxury BMW made with puka materials all the lower models are cheap plastics interiors which I hate.
Last edited by hilly10; 10th September 2019 at 20:54.
It's a bit weird at the moment. 16 reg seem to be the best bet, before they bought in flat rates. My GTE is free.
If changing I wanted the new shape which was March 2017 the newest before the increase would be 66 plate, so not worth changing for 18 months newer
Last edited by hilly10; 10th September 2019 at 20:59.
IIRC, you can get a March 2017, 17 plate on the old tax scheme, it’s April 2017 on that’s subject to the current tax rates.Originally Posted by hilly10
£300/year doesn’t seem much in the scheme of things for a relatively expensive car.
+1......when you work out the cost of running a newer car it’s nothing. The newer the car the more it’s costing, no matter how you try to dress the numbers up.
I pay £250/yr road tax on an 8 yr old Jaguar, I do around 4000 miles/year, it seems a lot to pay but at least the depreciation is all done and dusted at this age. I just pay it and I don’t moan, it is what it is, it isn’t dair but lots of things in life aren’t.
It could be argued that those who choose to run a car costing over £40K can afford the road tax.
Ah, one of those nice to have problems.
Plenty of other cars <£40k.
It’s not £300 it’s £465
I’ve just paid 560 for my M3, which felt a bit steep! As others have said in the context of all the other costs of running a car, it’s not that bad and there are plenty of options with low tax.
It used to be called road tax but now it's just another income stream for HMRC along with all other taxes. Just a shame a larger fraction of it isn't spent on the roads. After all, it used to be the larger vehicle the higher the tax on the basis they did more damage to the roads.
About time we were charged per mile driven not a fixed fee which forces a lot of second car/classics to be sorned during the winter when the occasional blast out keeps the car in good nick and clears the cobwebs.
And then you would see an increase in price of everything that is transported by lorry because the haulage companies sure as hell wouldn’t carry the cost. It’s not a realistic solution.
Vehicle tax was a nonsense. At least before electric vehicles.
I love that governments are ingenious at dreaming up additional taxes and we just have to suck it up!
Any tax and basic insurance should have been a levy on fuel. Then either more miles or more fuel consumption would have led to higher tax revenue, and no worries about hit and runs or stolen cars involved in accidents.
Having lots of vehicles but only driving one at a time across my whole family is a bit of a joke. 19 motorbikes and somewhere between 10-12 cars - keeping them all taxed is just a crazy price to pay. I'll have to sit everyone down and look at total consolidation, as it will probably work out cheaper to run newer/better cars - but the older bikes won't be going, and hopefully will move to low/zero tax in time (although we have a bloody admin charge!).
It's just a matter of time...
I love to take the TR6 out on a Sunday no tax etc cheap motoring it’s like sticking my two fingers up at the establishment, but there again with all the taxes I pay it covers it
Last edited by hilly10; 11th September 2019 at 15:49.
Road tax has been used for years as a blunt instrument to influence the buying habits of the motoring public. I refuse to use the term ‘motorist’, that’s an outmoded concept that harks back to the 1920s when cars were a genuine luxury item. The vast majority of us now own cars out of necessity, but successive UK governments persist in trying to treat cars as ‘luxury’ items. The high cost of fuel is dictated by the government persisting in adding lots if tax to the price, in today’s society it isn’t justifiable and it’s based on historical concepts.
I could bang on about these things ad nauseam, but nothing will change. Taxing personal transport heavily is a tradition that isn’t likely to change in this country. Moaning about the state of the roads is pointless too, perhaps folks should think twice before opting for ultra-low profile tyres and harsh suspension settings, many of todays cars aren’t comfortable or suitable for typical UK road surface.
I’ve owned my car for 8 years, if I count total running costs, including depreciation and loss of interest on capital outlay, I could probably have travelled every journey by taxi and still be no worse off financially.......cars are either expensive or very expensive items and road tax is just another part of it.
Both mine and my wife’s cars are insured on. a dual car policy with Admiral. I didn’t like the renewal premium, which had risen by 18.6% compared to last year. After a short conversation it fell by over £100........strongly advise everyone to query renewal premiums if they’ve risen sharply!
Put the tax on fuel, those doing most miles pay the most, would get rid of tax dodgers and encourage people to buy more fuel efficient vehicles.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
They already do - the best part of half the cost of all car fuel is tax/ fuel duty.
https://www.nextgreencar.com/car-tax/fuel-duty/
Yes, but they don't use that to offset any "Road" tax, or insurance etc. Bunch of....
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Or they just pay for electric instead these days.
It's just a matter of time...
The only saving grace for me is that classic cars (aka 'Historic Vehicles') don`t have to pay road tax, so my 1970 MGB costs nothing to keep on the road (apart from classic insurance at around £160). No MOT test to pay for either, a change which I disagree with but I'll take the £40 saving.
If I had my way I`d tax cars according to their size, cars have got wider but the country lanes haven`t, modern cars are bloaters compared with what we drove 30 years ago.
I`d also introduce taxation based on the appearance of the vehicle, SUVs and 4 x 4s are generally pig-ugly things so I`d make them pay 'ugly tax', same would apply to hideous colours, that would stop folks buying purple cars. I`d also apply this to dull colours such as that awful pale grey that Audi are now selling..........the world's depressing enough without having ugly and / or dull cars to look at.
Electric cars?.......now you're talking! I`d introduce 'smug tax' for those, as a generalisation the owners take great pleasure in telling everyone how cheap they are to run and how they're saving the planet by owning one, make them pay 'smug tax' and they'd soon think again.
A bit of creativity, that's what we need to make things fairer.......an electric SUV in a really bad colour could pay double ugly tax plus smug tax on top!
There’s nothing stopping you getting your classic car MOT’d anyway, many owners do so if just for peace of mind!
Never understood this, as old cars spew out all sorts of crap in huge quantities and VED is based on value and emissions they should pay more.
Cyclists should get a shower and a topless massage at the end of every journey. Knowing my luck I would get the massage from a fat sweaty bloke with moobs. I'll pass on the happy ending thanks.
Many classic cars only do a few hundred miles/year. They don’t spew out ‘all sorts of crap’, no diesel particulates because they’re all petrol, but they do produce higher levels of unburnt hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide than would be permissible nowadays.
As a percentage of total vehicle miles covered in the UK classic cars constitute a tiny fraction, and the owners almost always have an everyday car that they pay tax on. Classic car owners may generally be cleverer than average but they aren’t clever enough to drive two cars at once. The same argument could be used by anyone who has two cars that can only be driven by themself, they should only pay tax on one because they can only drive one car at once.
Again, read my post above. The cost of EVERYTHING transported by lorry would go up, and it’s us the public who would be paying for it.
It really doesn't make much difference, the tax revenue stream will be maintained one way or another. When there are tax incentives to changing consumer behaviour, once its changed the up the tax goes. Just see what happens when a significant part of the population switch to electric - they will then become the cash cows.
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How would they go about that if the car is predominately charged at home?
No need for them to get involved in the charging side of things - simply levy a tax on any electrically propelled vehicle - perhaps by kerb weight or power output.
The point is that the if revenues drop from one source the imperative will be to change the rules in order to make up the shortfall from another.Sent from my SM-G970F using TZ-UK mobile app
Smart meters
I refuse to have a smart meter.
However I fully expect that they will be in effect compulsory at some point.
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This will happen as surely as night follows day!
My thoughts are that, with all cars being “connected”, supposedly for the consumer’s benefit (social media, locating the car etc), every inch driven by every car will be recorded and monitored, probably also with some way of identifying the driver (unless driverless by then). This will allow easy charging on a “pay as you drive” basis.
It will also allow the government to charge every foreign vehicle on the road too.
Amen to that
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