New VED road tax rules: plan ahead for 2017 UK car tax changes

arcon5

Ectophile wrote: »

There's no such thing as a fair tax. Taxes are always based on somebody's agenda. What's fair for one person would be unfair for others. In most cases a "fair" tax is one where I pay less, while the people I don't really like pay more.

Why should someone who can only afford to buy a little city car pay as much tax as someone who can afford a huge estate car?

Why should somebody buying an older car which produces more pollution pay less tax than somebody buying a brand new car that produces less pollution?

You have quite a deluded sense of fairness so thank goodness you are not a politician.

Iceweasel

arcon5 wrote: »

You have quite a deluded sense of fairness so thank goodness you are not a politician.

I suspect (hope) that Ectophile was playing the devil's advocate a bit in that post.

I saw the examples as being food for thought more than committed personal opinion.

almillar

lol, considering a new car is £20,000 I like how MSE is suggesting people plan the purchasse of their new car either before or after the tax changes.

MSE isn't suggesting anything. A user posted a link to a motoring website.

Car tax can vary from £100-£300

No, it can currently vary from £0 to £500 (or close) from year 2.

I gather that already registered cars will not be affected

Correct, new cars from April 2017 only. Your CR-V has been, and always will be, in the same band, having been built between April 2001 and March 2017. Rates for each band will change of course, and the Gov could change the rules. Your SLK is taxed based only on engine size - over 1600CC but again that rate can be changed.

My problem with the CO2 based ratings we have is that there are 'old' cars, April 2006 onwards, that are in the top band -circa £500 PER YEAR. This really hits their value hard, and they are racing towards the scrapheap faster. Maybe that's the plan, but it doesn't seem environmentally friendly to send even a gas guzzler (which may do low mileage) to a scrapheap quickly.

So why not go the whole hog and put it all on fuel? Think of the savings in admin costs and enforcement at the DVLA alone.

It's a control mechanism, which would be lost if it was all just fuel.

Why should someone who can only afford to buy a little city car pay as much tax as someone who can afford a huge estate car?

Why should somebody buying an older car which produces more pollution pay less tax than somebody buying a brand new car that produces less pollution?

In both of these examples, more tax is paid by these cars through fuel duty, and possibly higher insurance and purchase costs, which both get taxed. so they pay more 'tax'.

Herzlos

I'm looking forward to this; the cars I normally go for (5-10 year old gas guzzlers - I don't do many miles) are currently far too expensive to tax, but will become affordable again in 2022 though I'm not sure my current car will last that long.

Ebe_Scrooge

What really pi$$es me off is that "zero-emission" cars pay no tax. Can someone please show me a zero-emission car ? Ah, you mean electrically-powered ? OK, where does the electricity to charge it come from ? Ah yes, solar panels and wind turbines. In an ideal world perhaps - in reality it comes from coal- and gas-fired power stations. And they pump out no pollution, do they ?


OK, what electric vehicles do do is take the pollution away from the city centres. But to call them zero-emission is just plain wrong. It's like saying the NHS is free - it's free at the point of use, but it ain't free.


And - I'm no electrical engineer - but I'd wager that there is more energy wasted in electric vehicles than internal combustion. Internal combustion, you're burning the fuel where it's needed - it's a straight conversion of chemical energy into kinetic and heat energy. OK, the heat energy is essentially wasted. But for electricity, there will be losses at each stage, from the generation, distribution, storage ( charging the batteries ), conversion to kinetic energy .... I wouldn't know how to do the sums, but it would be interesting to see how an average medium-sized petrol or diesel engine compares to an electric engine in real terms, when all factors are taken into account.


Rant over

Herzlos

I kind of agree, but the point isn't just about what the car emits, it's about where.

I'd much rather the energy was emitted in large facilities where they can be filtered, or from clear source, than emitted in city streets.

Plus, Power stations are much for efficient (90%+?) than Internal Combustion Engines (~30%?) when it comes to getting energy out of fuel. That's before you look at using up off-peak overflow and regenerative breaking and stuff.

Like Schwarzenegger said; it doesn't matter how you feel about electric cars. If you had to chose a sealed room to enter, one containing an ICE car, and one an electric, which would you choose?

I'm really all for encouraging pure-electric cars.

londonTiger

arcon5 wrote: »

About time a fairer system was introduced.

You should be aware that whenever there is change in tax rules, while some people see a reduction is costs, there typically is net increase in revenue collected overall. Most people will pay more.

Nasqueron

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

What really pi$$es me off is that "zero-emission" cars pay no tax. Can someone please show me a zero-emission car ? Ah, you mean electrically-powered ? OK, where does the electricity to charge it come from ? Ah yes, solar panels and wind turbines. In an ideal world perhaps - in reality it comes from coal- and gas-fired power stations. And they pump out no pollution, do they ?


OK, what electric vehicles do do is take the pollution away from the city centres. But to call them zero-emission is just plain wrong. It's like saying the NHS is free - it's free at the point of use, but it ain't free.


And - I'm no electrical engineer - but I'd wager that there is more energy wasted in electric vehicles than internal combustion. Internal combustion, you're burning the fuel where it's needed - it's a straight conversion of chemical energy into kinetic and heat energy. OK, the heat energy is essentially wasted. But for electricity, there will be losses at each stage, from the generation, distribution, storage ( charging the batteries ), conversion to kinetic energy .... I wouldn't know how to do the sums, but it would be interesting to see how an average medium-sized petrol or diesel engine compares to an electric engine in real terms, when all factors are taken into account.


Rant over

While I agree that it's technically not emission free, you have to use power to refine fuel as well so that scales up the emissions of diesel and petrol in comparison so if you're going for that angle, fuel cars should be paying more due to that increased pollution.

The ideal world would be more solar and wind + nuclear providing the power (the two former on a house to charge the household car) and cutting out oil, gas and coal but it simply won't happen given how cheap and available coal is and the power of the industry in places like the US

Nasqueron

Minrich wrote: »

Why do people buy brand new ? Why not ex demo or a year old and save a stack of cash ? Is it just for the options that can be added ?

For me, a combination of factors:

1) After last 2 cars (a gifted old banger and an ex-internal use company car bought direct from the manufacturer through to a contact) I wanted a car that was really "mine" - no-one else had sat in the car and driven it, no-one else's bodily excretions on the seat, steering wheel etc etc
2) Car was on 0% finance new, it was about £4500 more than the ex-demo one that customers also could use during their car service (meaning no idea what sort of journeys or how they had driven it given it wasn't theirs) - meant the money I had to pay cash for the ex-demo could sit in an account earning me interest rather than with the car company
3) Could spec the car how I wanted, choice of colour, option pack etc

facade

Minrich wrote: »

Why do people buy brand new ? Why not ex demo or a year old and save a stack of cash ? Is it just for the options that can be added ?

Where will the 1 year old cars come from if no-one buys new? :eek:

I think more people should buy new, that will lower second hand prices due to supply & demand