Budget Changes for Motoring

daveyjp

Premium rate will be £450. First registration fees are also increased.

Nice earner for HM Govt, but I can't see many of the company directors I know giving up the Range Rovers and Aston Martins.

marlot

daveyjp wrote: »

Premium rate will be £450. First registration fees are also increased.

Nice earner for HM Govt, but I can't see many of the company directors I know giving up the Range Rovers and Aston Martins.

That's fine, and when they get to six years old, the VED will fall to £140, so at least they can have a long and useful life - rather than being scrapped early because the VED is too high.

Fella

This is presumably going to see huge demand for cars in (for example) the B & C ranges before April 2017. IIUC someone buying a B car in March 2017 will pay £20 a year VED. Someone buying the same car in April 2017 will pay £140 a year VED.

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables

andyfr_2

It may well create an increased demand for the higher band cars after that date as they will be paying less!

onomatopoeia99

lisa110rry wrote: »

I like to say I'm really being the "green" one because I keep my cars forever, but no one believes me, lol...

You're right, it's something like half the total energy used by a car over the average car lifetime is consumed in its construction and destruction - clearly this is less for cars that have a long lifetime. I'm biased though , my Porsche is fifteen years old (I've owned it for eleven of those). Even the boring (but super comfy with its air suspension) diesel Audi A6 estate is 13 years old, and my newest vehicle.

Typically I only change cars when my needs change, and I've always said that come what may I will keep the Porsche until I no longer bend enough to get in, or the floor rots out (no sign of rust yet, thankfully).

almillar

The little old lady with het Automatic 12 year old car who only does 1000 miles a year can pay more than someone travelling 50,000 miles a year.

The 50,000 miler will have paid oodles of fuel duty and VAT to drive that distance.

Good proposals overall, and might stop people spending thousands of pounds to have a smaller slower car than they currently have to save a few hundred quid on tax.

These changes are for new cars from 2017 as has been said. I think they need to look at the rates on older cars - 2006 onwards specifically. The top band for these cars is £490 I think. Many of these cars are now only worth a few thousand pounds, and the VED per year is a massive proportion of the purchase cost. This is very off putting to buyers, and will mean cars being accelerated towards the scrapheap. If someone buys a new car that pollutes, fair enough, make them pay, but £490 per year on £3,000 cars doesn't seem fair.

Herzlos

AdrianC wrote: »

It'd be very simple to avoid - especially with older diesels, or for people living near a ferry port or the border to Eire.

I'm not sure everyone could run on chip-oil though, there's not enough supply. Sure, people could border hop to fill up, but that many of them?

It'd also massively penalise business use. To roughly break even, it'd have to be about 12p/litre.

And they are the ones causing the pollution why shouldn't they pay pro-rata? Or why not allow them to get a rebate/offset on their fuel bill like everything else they can expense?

You'll do more for emissions by encouraging fleet drivers to be more efficient, than 1000-mile-a-year pensioners. It can be simple stuff like retuning engines, driver training, better streamlining, or speed restrictions.

And what about fuel used in lawnmowers/chainsaws/etc where VED isn't required, but red diesel isn't an option?

I guess you'd either need to take the VED hit or allow some sort of rebate scheme, which would still be easier to handle than tracking tax for the other 99.9% of the population. Maybe sell it at a max 1 litre a time without the VED unless they've got a suitable trade card. I've admittedly no idea how much fuel a lawnmower uses but I'm assuming it's not a lot.

Herzlos

almillar wrote: »

but £490 per year on £3,000 cars doesn't seem fair.

It's £495/year currently, and there will be plenty under £1500 now. Soon they'll get to the point where some cars cost more to tax annually than they cost to buy.

Herzlos

daveyjp wrote: »

Premium rate will be £450. First registration fees are also increased.

Nice earner for HM Govt, but I can't see many of the company directors I know giving up the Range Rovers and Aston Martins.

Is there any detail on what they are calling "premium"? I know they say the top 5%, but I also remember what happened with the F & G bands where many normal family cars were hit under the "gas guzzlers" category.

AdrianC

Herzlos wrote: »

Is there any detail on what they are calling "premium"?

£40k list price.