A Week Old

[Doesn'tExist]

Exactly Grumpy...

DWilson, doesn't mean I don't resent it, but lets keep it in perspective. I'd happily pay more if it was ring fenced for roads...Personally I think they should move away from this CO2 nonsense, and charge in accordance with the weight of the vehicle. Not good for Prius owners, but fair I think.

[timberwolf]

If the price of unleaded is 120p a litre then 75p (fuel duty+vat) of that is tax (or a tax rate of 62.5%).

Work that out for 3000 pounds and 1875 of that is tax.

[Jan&tone]

Exactly Grumpy...

DWilson, doesn't mean I don't resent it, but lets keep it in perspective. I'd happily pay more if it was ring fenced for roads...Personally I think they should move away from this CO2 nonsense, and charge in accordance with the weight of the vehicle. Not good for Prius owners, but fair I think.

IMHO road tax is an outdated, unfair and iniquitous tax. It MUST be put on petrol - after all the government , whatever shade, collects enuf tax on petrol, an increase to cover road tax wouldn't cause any more of a complication to collect.

This would mean that firstly you wouldn't be able to dodge it, and secondly those that use the roads more (sorry RNS and Grumpy) would pay more.

After all, why should someone doing 5000 miles a year in a 4x4 pay 4 times the amount of a rep in a Mondeo doing 40k ???

probably very controversial but I've thought this for years....

[Doesn'tExist]

There are many ways to avoid fuel duty unfortunately, I used to work for Customs and it was quite some effort. And with current modern egines capable of running on nearly anything it will become more difficult every day.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Exactly Grumpy...

DWilson, doesn't mean I don't resent it, but lets keep it in perspective. I'd happily pay more if it was ring fenced for roads...Personally I think they should move away from this CO2 nonsense, and charge in accordance with the weight of the vehicle. Not good for Prius owners, but fair I think.

IMHO road tax is an outdated, unfair and iniquitous tax. It MUST be put on petrol - after all the government , whatever shade, collects enuf tax on petrol, an increase to cover road tax wouldn't cause any more of a complication to collect.

This would mean that firstly you wouldn't be able to dodge it, and secondly those that use the roads more (sorry RNS and Grumpy) would pay more.

After all, why should someone doing 5000 miles a year in a 4x4 pay 4 times the amount of a rep in a Mondeo doing 40k ???

probably very controversial but I've thought this for years....

Probably because that rep is already paying a heck of a proportion of his £6,000 a year fuel bill in tax. I would go bankrupt tomorrow if the government decided to do away with road tax and stick it all on fuel, because I know damn well they'd use it as a good excuse to overtax us more. And if I didn't go bankrupt I'd put my prices up by to compensate for the increase and I'm sure it would be a significant increase, as would the haulage companies, bus companies, train companies etc - you get the picture.

So it sounds great that someone doing 5000 miles a year should only pay another couple of quid by doing away with car tax, but anyone out there doing a job that involves driving any sort of vehicle would pack up and move somewhere where they don't continually tax you to an inch of bankruptcy. The workers out there don't have an unlimited amount of money to keep handing over to be invested wisely by our government (whatever their colour). If Labour had got in and introduced that tax increase for anyone earning over £21k, I was going to reduce my hours to make sure I earnt under that.

I'll get down off my tax soap box now

[Jan&tone]

:). Soapboxes are good Grunpy they let us remain sane!!!

[Grumpy Cabbie]

:). Soapboxes are good Grunpy they let us remain sane!!!

Remain sane? Ah, too late for me then

[johalareewi]

I hear what you're saying Doesnotexist. I save £3,000 a year in fuel with the Prius and when discussing the car with my customers they are only half impressed with the fuel consumption savings, but tell 'em I get free road tax and they can hardly console themselves with excitement! I mean they get more excited over saving £150 - £200 a year in tax than the massive fuel savings!

Very strange indeed.

Maybe it's because the car tax is a large lump sum and you only get 2 weeks in which to pay it and no instalment facility. With fuel, if you don't have the money, you don't have to put it in. There is no getting away from car tax. MOT is similar and servicing (and tyres). with my new Prius, I get no tax, no MOT and affordable servicing.

[Doesn'tExist]

Seriously, do you really think someone driving a 30k+ vehicle needs to be looking for an instalment facility to pay £200ish? If that is the case they really shouldn't have bought a vehicle but use their money more wisely.

[johalareewi]

Seriously, do you really think someone driving a 30k+ vehicle needs to be looking for an instalment facility to pay £200ish? If that is the case they really shouldn't have bought a vehicle but use their money more wisely.

Just responding to GCs observation that people get excited over saving £200 once a year, and not so excited on the (far greater) fuel savings over the whole year.

[dwilson]

Seriously, do you really think someone driving a 30k+ vehicle needs to be looking for an instalment facility to pay £200ish? If that is the case they really shouldn't have bought a vehicle but use their money more wisely.

Just responding to GCs observation that people get excited over saving £200 once a year, and not so excited on the (far greater) fuel savings over the whole year.

For me it was a combination of expenses that resulted in me deciding that I would really rather spend, or donate, my finite amount of money in other ways. I enjoyed the performance of my previous car but the tyres cost £750 for 4, the servicing was £300 or more, the petrol was superunleaded and I was lucky to get 25 mpg, the road tax was £405, and the final straw was that it was just out of 3 year warranty which meant the stereo/sat nav/fuel computer module which developed an intermittent fault would have cost £1500 to replace. So I decided to come back to the sensible costs of Toyota ownership!

My biggest saving is on fuel but the road tax did niggle me more! I think it was because I knew that really expensive cars would not cost more to tax and if mine had been slightly older the tax would have been much less. I wouldn't have minded £200 but £405 and probably rising just seemed excessive - especially as the money is not even used to fill in the potholes.

[Doesn'tExist]

Unfortunately the UK has a weird system whereby RFL can't be ring fenced for the roads. I mean why not call it something else then ;-)

I know what you mean though, my wives car was costing us nearly £8k in fuel for just the school run ;-) But to be honest it was nearly 5 years old since new so stuff started to go wrong, no more warranty etc. Bills did start getting big, but besides the psychological effect, the RFL was the smallest bill. A fill up was about £80 every 5 days :-)

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Unfortunately the UK has a weird system whereby RFL can't be ring fenced for the roads. I mean why not call it something else then ;-)

Hmmm, so how come the TV licence is spent on the BBC?

[Doesn'tExist]

But the TV license is not the Road Fund License is it?

[acetip]

But the TV license is not the Road Fund License is it?

do they spend the tax on beer on on public houses.do they spend the tax on condoms on brothels?

[Doesn'tExist]

But the TV license is not the Road Fund License is it?

do they spend the tax on beer on on public houses.do they spend the tax on condoms on brothels?

No ofcourse not, then again brothels are illegal in the UK so HMG is missing a trick there ;-)

The point being that people always seem to come with remarks like the potholes don't get filled or this and that with the road. Unlike many other european countries, road tax aka rfl, is just general income not specific to the roads which is a publicly funded infrastructure.

[Ancient Nerd]

Car Tax was originally called the Road Fund Licence. It was ringfenced to pay for road building maintenance. However, at some point it was un-ringfenced, and became part of general taxation. Same thing for National Insurance. This is now just Income Tax under another name.

This is why I never believe any politician that says a new tax will be ringfenced for something. This just an excuse to justify a new tax. It won't be ringfenced for long. Fairly soon it will be yet another tax.

Please excuse my cynicism.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Car Tax was originally called the Road Fund Licence. It was ringfenced to pay for road building maintenance. However, at some point it was un-ringfenced, and became part of general taxation. Same thing for National Insurance. This is now just Income Tax under another name.

This is why I never believe any politician that says a new tax will be ringfenced for something. This just an excuse to justify a new tax. It won't be ringfenced for long. Fairly soon it will be yet another tax.

Please excuse my cynicism.

Hmmm, cynicism against the Government? That must mean you're either self employed or work in a proper job for a living? You know, where you can relate hard work or risk taking into rewards and not just handed to you on a plate by some bully boy union?

:!Removed!: