Diesel Drivers to be taxed more?

Strider590

AdrianC wrote: »

And how much fuel duty, IPT and VAT does each contribute?



Perhaps if VED was free for older vehicles? Say, 40yr and older, with the exemption rolling? That'd be a good idea, wouldn't it?

(And, fwiw, I speak here as somebody with a stack of '80s vehicles...)

A car doesn't have to be old to be a classic, its wrong that a car covering less than a few k a year should be taxed the same or more than some repmobile doing 30k.

The truth is the govt want rid of older cars completely, for them the ideal is people buying new cars every few years, keeps the cash flowing in, keeps us all compliant and in debt.

AdrianC

Strider590 wrote: »

its wrong that a car covering less than a few k a year should be taxed the same or more than some repmobile doing 30k.

It isn't, though.

Let's take an example of a post-74 larger engined petrol vehicle (£230VED) doing 20mpg for 2000 miles per year, versus a newish £30VED diesel repmobile doing 50mpg for 30k miles.

The older vehicle is getting through 100 gallons, 450 litres, of fuel per year. With VAT on a £1.30 litre coming in at 22p/litre, plus 58p of fuel duty, that's (450*(.22+.58))+230 = £590 contributed to the exchequer each year.

The repmobile is getting through 600 gallons, 2700 litres. So that's £2,190 contributed per year.

I dunno about you, but when I last studied maths, £2190 was a lot more than £590. And that ignores the VAT on maintenance, tyres etc. The VAT on the lease. The IPT on the significantly higher premiums. Etc, etc etc...

Cost per mile? Absolutely. But since when was a small packet of anything cheaper than a large packet of the same? There are fixed costs and variable costs.

hgotsparkle

AdrianC wrote: »

And if your vehicles were both on the pre-2001, engine-size rather than CO2, tax banding - they still would be. And so would next door's Ferrari.

Two bands, <1550cc, 1550cc=>

They're both back end of 2001 models.
I do about 100miles per week travel, he does near on 300 a week.

londonTiger

facade wrote: »

"betrayed and misled" into buying diesel :rotfl:


"They" caught me in 1993, when I bought a diesel 4wd.
At the time, diesel was cheaper than petrol at the pumps.

Lasted about a year before "They" noticed the surge in diesel sales and increased the tax on diesel to make it more expensive than petrol.

"They" have to finance their 11% payrise somehow, and it is us that have to pay it. :cool:

Diesel prices are strictly supply and demand.

During crude oil refining, you get a fixed ratio of different petrochemicals.

When the majority of cars were petrol and diesel vehicles were limited in number (vans, lorries, ships, etc). There was always a surplus of diesel - they couldn't get rid of it so prices were at rock bottom.

Simply put, they needed to refine more crude to produce petrol - byproduct was they ended up getting more diesel as a result.

Now more and more passenger cars are using diesel so demand has increased.

BillJones

AdrianC wrote: »

It makes a LOT more sense than raising the duty on fuel by sufficient (about 12p/litre) to balance the revenue.

Doing that would decrease the cost for low-mileage drivers, but massively increase it for business users, especially the haulage industry. It'd also increase cross-border fuel purchasing, especially in NI and possibly after the Scottish referendum, and increase illegal fuel import.

These don't seem like arguments against putting the duty on fuel, though. If the aim is to make the cost representative of the pollution caused, then it only makes sense to put it on the fuel, not on the car.

As I've pointed out previously, I have a 6.3 litre engine in my car that struggles to better 11mpg. I only do about 3-4k per year in it, and so pump out less CO2 than someone in a Focus who does 40k miles. If the charge is on the CO2 output then the Focus driver needs to pay more duty than I do.

BillJones

AdrianC wrote: »

It isn't, though.

Let's take an example of a post-74 larger engined petrol vehicle (£230VED) doing 20mpg for 2000 miles per year, versus a newish £30VED diesel repmobile doing 50mpg for 30k miles.

The older vehicle is getting through 100 gallons, 450 litres, of fuel per year. With VAT on a £1.30 litre coming in at 22p/litre, plus 58p of fuel duty, that's (450*(.22+.58))+230 = £590 contributed to the exchequer each year.

The repmobile is getting through 600 gallons, 2700 litres. So that's £2,190 contributed per year.

I dunno about you, but when I last studied maths, £2190 was a lot more than £590. And that ignores the VAT on maintenance, tyres etc. The VAT on the lease. The IPT on the significantly higher premiums. Etc, etc etc...

Cost per mile? Absolutely. But since when was a small packet of anything cheaper than a large packet of the same? There are fixed costs and variable costs.

I'm not sure if you are being facetious or not. I hope so, as otherwise your maths teachers failed...

Yes, you've managed to construct an example where even the wrong tax gives the right outcome. To do this, you had to select extreme differences. As you hopefully realise, you could just as easily have picked examples where the more polluting car paid less in duty. Given that there is a perfectly simple and workable method that stops this ever happening, whereas your preferred system normally does not, it's not really clear what point you were hoping to make.

Your example was as bad as saying that it makes sense to base income tax on postcode, as you can identify where the wealthy live. Why come up with a poor proxy, when you can directly tax the thing that is supposed to be being taxed?

Herzlos

BillJones wrote: »

These don't seem like arguments against putting the duty on fuel, though. If the aim is to make the cost representative of the pollution caused, then it only makes sense to put it on the fuel, not on the car.

Putting the duty on the fuel also has a direct impact on speed, maintenance and journey planning; it'll cost more tax to drive faster, in poorly maintained cars or when it's congested, so it'll encourage people to drive more slowly, look after their vehicles and travel at quieter times, all of which are good for the environment. The only downside is the increased tax for those doing huge mileages.

[Deleted User]

Or they could just tax every car a blanket amount say £150 a year, no matter what size engine or what the CO2 is.

Why should someone who can't afford to buy a new low-CO2 rated car be penalised.

forgotmyname

I will vote for the 1st party that admit that Mr Motorist is a cash cow and will always be a cash cow. Its not a matter of saving the enviroment or having cleaner air to breath. Its milking them for as much as they can get away with.

jimjames

laidbackgjr wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/11007326/Diesel-car-drivers-betrayed-as-EU-cracks-down-on-Britain-over-air-pollution.html

Potential for diesels to be taxed more due to their dirtier emissions resulting in high pollution levels in UK cities and the country being fined for breaching EU safe air health levels.

Any thoughts - something I've been expecting for a while and one of the reasons I've stuck with Petrol cars.

Find this hard to understand.

How come the UK is being fined for pollution and needs to raise diesel prices yet diesel in France is still way cheaper. Currently available at under £1 per litre.

I wonder if it is something to do with the fact we have 4x the population density causing the higher pollution.