Road Tax

[Hybrid21]

Renewed my road tax, £155 😟

I feel that this should be less for a hybrid vehicle. My previous vehicle a Volvo XC60 diesel was less !

No incentive for people to drive cleaner vehicles..........

Iain

[ColinB]

There is a discount for hybrids - £10pa, don't spend it all at once

[flash22]

The rates changed for cars built after 1st April 2017

at least It's not over £40K as that's £510 a year for the first 5 years

my 2016 yaris hybrid (15" wheels) is zero tax, ulez and congestion charge free

[Rhymes with Paris]

I remember my very easy going uncle back in the 1960s being quite upset when road tax doubled from £12 10s to £25 a year.

To give some context he bought his ford e93a for £15 around that time,petrol was £1 for 4 gallons , note not litres.

A manual workers wage was I think about £8 or £9 a week.

Happy to be corrected if my memory is failing me.😊

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Afraid that's the way it is.

[Cyker]

It's amazing how inflation has devalued currency over the years!

[NASY]

Had an e93a. Didn't do many miles per gallon, not the reason I sold it though.

 

[nlee]

Interesting how the cost of the RFL and the premium for "luxury" cars both go up, presumably "in line with inflation" but the value limit for the luxury car does not increase. 

[Hybrid21]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:23 PM, flash22 said:

The rates changed for cars built after 1st April 2017

at least It's not over £40K as that's £510 a year for the first 5 years

my 2016 yaris hybrid (15" wheels) is zero tax, ulez and congestion charge free

Means I won't be buying another new Rav4 😟

Need to keep under the 40K 👍

[FROSTYBALLS]

As far as I can see, the term 'luxury' vehicle isn't used by Government. Yes there is the £40K threshold, but I think more likely the media has labelled the extra payments as being for luxury vehicles.

 

v149-rates-of-vehicle-tax-from-1-april-2022-for-cars-motorcycles-light-goods-vehicles-and-private-light-goods-vehicles.pdf

[ernieb]

When it was originally introduced it was set at £50K but I understand that it was not making the expected revenue return and was reduced to £40K.  A significant change which I was not aware of until I had done the deal for my PHEV, buyer beware.

[Rigsby]

My previous car a Jaguar XE R-Sport, I kept to just below £40k for that reason,  my Dynamic also came in at below £40k, just got my renewal for £155.

My wife’s Mercedes A Class diesel is just £20 / year.

The extra you have to pay because you go over the £40k line in the sand equates to £1775 over 5 years.

Call me tight but that’s £1775 I can put to much better use.

[ernieb]

Just renewed mine @£510, sad but there we are, I still like the car but……

[Lawnmowerman]

No one likes paying taxes.........

[Mike2222]

It's all about context really. It's been said a thousand times before, but obsessing over £1775 in the context of a £40-50k is a bit silly, assuming one intends to own the vehicle outright. ie if you can afford that much for a commodity, then don't whinge about a relatively small amount of money, in the grand scheme of things. Very much a "first world problem" in light of however many years of "austerity"-based policy on public spending etc, and the coming years/decade of cost of living issues. 

 

If going more the finance-and-switch after x years, then the extra cost is both a larger % of the total cost of ownership, and made more painful by the fact that you know you will never own the car long enough to outlive the "luxury" added tax, and one would assume you are likely to be considering similar quality/status/price tag of replacement cars in future years. 

 

Put simply, £1775 over 5yrs amounts to about £29.59/month. How many people have phone/broadband/tv/sky sports/movies packages etc etc for similar money? It's a choice, live with it (or don't). 

[Cyker]

I know what you mean, it feels like I'm being punished going from a more polluting car at £30 to one that is less polluting at £155!

This is the danger of setting precedents without thinking them through... not that the government seem to do much in the way of forward thinking vs knee-jerk thinking...

[Roy124]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:23 PM, flash22 said:

The rates changed for cars built after 1st April 2017

at least It's not over £40K as that's £510 a year for the first 5 years

my 2016 yaris hybrid (15" wheels) is zero tax, ulez and congestion charge free

Is that not years 2-6?  Not sure about year 1

[flash22]

2-6 either way you're attached to an object on an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis

Vehicles with a list price of more than £40,000

You have to pay an extra £355 a year if you have a car or motorhome with a ‘list price’ (the published price before any discounts) of more than £40,000. You do not have to pay this if you have a zero emission vehicle.

You only have to pay this rate for 5 years (from the second time the vehicle is taxed).

 

Edit. 1st years tax is usually built in to the OTR costs, either way you pay the £155

[FROSTYBALLS]

7 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

Is that not years 2-6?  Not sure about year 1

Vehicle tax - year 1 is based on emissions, and subsequent years are a flat rate. The extra payment for vehicles over £40K at time of first registration is payable or 5 years from year 2.

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

I know what you mean, it feels like I'm being punished going from a more polluting car at £30 to one that is less polluting at £155!

I don't really see what the problem is. A different system was put into place from 1st April 2017, and that's the system for cars first registered from that date.

Vehicle tax has never been an issue for us when deciding on a new car - it is what it is, and we just pay what is due. 

[Cyker]

Really? You don't see how paying more tax for 'greener' car than a more polluting car could be seen as a negative?

I'm not criticising the scheme per-se - IMHO they should never have changed the car tax system in the first place, as any idiot could see what would happen (i.e. that everyone would switch to diesel and their tax income would decline), and I think this is more sustainable if less fair than the previous system, but that still doesn't change the fact it's a kick in the proverbials for anyone buying a less polluting car post-2017 aside from EV people (Which IMHO they should NOT have excluded, but again same shortsighted planning which is going to land them with exactly the same problem before too long!)

It's especially grating when you realize the winners are people that buy the massive land barges that are SUVs and expensive gas guzzlers that we're supposed to be discouraging - Where they'd be paying hundreds of quid in car tax, now they'd be paying maybe half or a quarter.

My only hope is they don't change the system again but this seems unlikely.

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

27 minutes ago, Cyker said:

You don't see how paying more tax for 'greener' car than a more polluting car could be seen as a negative?

No - basically we pay what is due under the system in force at the time. I'm not bothered about whether a car we've bought is less or more green than the previous one - we buy what we like and what suits our needs at the time. If the new car is less polluting than the last that is obviously a plus point, but we don't get hung up by differences in the current tax system compared to a previous system. There is no point in that.

[Cyker]

Ah okay, so you can see the issue, you just don't consider it a problem. I was thinking you literally didn't understand what I was saying!

We're all entitled to our opinions so that's fine - I'm in two minds about it as, obviously it is a big U-turn and flies in the fact of current policy of encouraging people to get less polluting cars, but IMHO tax shouldn't be used for such a purpose anyway.

 

[Hybrid21]

The government should be encouraging people to buy greener cars by making them more financially attractive to potential buyers.

Road tax is one of the easier ways to do this 👍

[Composite Guru]

On 4/6/2022 at 2:40 PM, Hybrid21 said:

Renewed my road tax, £155 😟

I feel that this should be less for a hybrid vehicle. My previous vehicle a Volvo XC60 diesel was less !

No incentive for people to drive cleaner vehicles..........

Iain

Probably because they realised people were buying the low VED cars. This doesn’t bring much revenue in so make it similar across the board like years ago.