(and burying bad news in the small print isn't too bright, either).>>
As with the 10p tax band fiasco.
>>As for journalists: they are a fine body of men and women upon whom we can always rely. Not.>>
It's those very same people who so often expose so many deceitful measures.
Edited by Stuartli on 30/04/2008 at 14:24
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I was worried for a moment when I read "older cars". But then I read 2001.
So no need to worry at all. It sounds a good idea to tax modern cars and encourage people to keep driving old ones.
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and pre-1973 cars continue to be free. Landrovers. Mk II Jaguars. etc.
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I'm a bit surprised this has come up again. It was not 'buried in the small print' - it was very clear in the budget document (I read it on the day) and has been all over the various car forums.
BTW, anyone who thinks that 'Dave' will suddenly go all 'car friendly' and reduce motoring taxes is being incredibly naive and in for a very nasty shock. He will fiddle about with taxes a bit - the top 10% will be a bit better off, the bottom 10% a bit worse off and the 80% of us in the middle will notice very little difference.
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I'm also a bit surprised, but of course elections tomorrow.
An opposition spokesperson has just been on 5 live with Gerry Halliwell who said she had just paid her car tax and it was "about £80".
Spokeperson - "ohh it would have been much MORE than that"
Which shows two things - Gerry Halliwell probably didn't know, she admitted she just signed the cheque.
More importantly the spokesperson shows she knows nothing about car tax. Unless she knew what sort of car Gerry Halliwell was taxing and how much tax she actually bought she can't say if it would have been "much MORE" than that.
£80 will pay for nearly 3 years tax on our Aygo - bargain.
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I'm a bit surprised this has come up again. It was not 'buried in the small print' - it was very clear in the budget document (I read it on the day) and has been all over the various car forums.
I wouldn't call it coming up again. It has indeed been on several car forums (there's a current thread on here I started about my correspondence with an MP about the subject) - but the media seemed to completely ignore the retrospective element until now.
In fact, I could be a little annoyed about the Times suddenly covering it, since I wrote to them weeks ago pointing out this angle, and the fact that their reporting had missed it.
It coming into the public eye (rather than just a bunch of car nuts knowing about it and no-one else!) can only be a good thing.
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Must admit I agree with qxm, it only seems to have raised its head because of elections... or are we being too cynical?
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qxman said: >> it was very clear in the budget document (I read it on the day) and has been all over the various car forums.>>
He's right, but how many people read the budget document on the day? And if you post on a forum you're more interested than the average punter.
It does take a long while for things to sink in. Brown reduced the basic rate to 20% in his last budget but it's only now that people are realising that for basic rate taxpayers contributing to a pension, the cost just went up as the tax relief came down.
I think it'll be the same with VED. People will suddenly realise that a car which has cost them a fiver more to tax this year will cost them £50 more next year. And maybe not till the form comes through the post. Be interesting to see what happens then.
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There's been no secrecy on the part of the government. Forthcoming VED rates were published on 12th March 2008. tinyurl.com/39wl95
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I'm certainly not saying secret. I'm saying lots of people don't notice until the letter drops through the letterbox.
To interpret the new VED rates you have to know what the CO2 output of your car is. So you have to navigate through the DVLA website to the DirectGov site where the information is to be found. Or ask your dealer. Or look at the V5. Or whatever. And the DirectGov site doesn't even have the info for older cars.
It all takes a bit of effort. And unless you contribute to something like this forum, car tax ia a pretty dull topic.
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There's an awful lot of nonsense spoken about this.
My car is a Zafira GSi with a 2.0 litre turbo charged petrol engine. It falls within the new band K. So by 2010-11 the VED will rise from £205 to £310 a year.
The number of 'normal family cars' caught really isn't that great.
At current petrol prices if I do 700 less private miles a year (out of around 13,000) I'm better off ................
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Really? Our Zafira 2.2 auto will also fall in band K, is that not a normal family car? Even the Zafira 1.6 manual is band I or £210 a year, an increase of £40! Well above inflation by a big margin.
Or how about a 2005 Mondeo 2.0 LX auto? That will also be in band K and £300. The manual version will still be band J, or £260 a year, a £50 jump from this year.
Even a 2006 Golf 2.0 TDI will be going up from £145 to £150, OK, not unreasonable. But it make a mockery of the governments assertion that 1/2 of new car buyers and 1/3 of existing owners will be better off. Even the Polo 1.2 will be staying the same at £120. Who exactly will be better off? And if so many people will be better off, why does the budget expect an *increase* in VED revenue of £735m a year on top of the existing VED tax take!
That's not nonsense, all facts. ;)
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Some Zafira GSi models will rise from £210 to £415 in one jump. Others from £210 to £300 - still a big jump. It depends on which model it is.
All of the new shape (2005 on) turbo petrol models fall in the £415 bracket.
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That's right, even the 2.0T SRi will be hit with the maximum. It might be sporty and quick, but it's still a family car. People who bought one in 2005 (before band G was even introduced) would not have expected it to suddenly increase by 100% in a year!
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Can anyone see any logic in, or explain why, the CO2 bands are divided up as they have been for VED?
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All cars are family cars - it just depends upon how you define family
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As soon as the extra band g was added last year the writing was on the wall. Anyone that believed these money grabbing wasteful air thieves weren't going to screw the motorist is naive. That's the whole point of banding. If people all bought low band cars the bands would be moved to compensate! As soon as they were introduced in 2001 it was obvious what they were up to. The band A cheap rate had no cars in it. As soon there were a decent number suddenly there was a band shift and they didn't qualify any more.
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As soon as they were introduced in 2001 it was obvious what they were up to.
Really? Funny how nobody talked about it, imagined it or expected it! The benefits of hindsight eh?
In reality, when Band G was introduced, it wasn't retrospective, so the signal was loud in clear in 2006: when we introduce new bands that won't apply to existing cars, just new ones.
IMHO.
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In reality when Band G was introduced it wasn't retrospective so the signal was loud in clear in 2006: when we introduce new bands that won't apply to existing cars just new ones.
I agree, and to suggest the government would do what they did in the last budget would have been labelled as the worst form of cynicism. there's also the small matter that applying the bands to new cars was the only means of actually effecting emissions, albeit in the medium to longer term. The retrospective part of the legislation will not affect emissions one jot.
Sadly when it comes to politicians, cynicism is justified, and common sense is well beyond their remit.
Cheers
DP
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applying the bands to new cars was the only means of actually effecting emissions, albeit in the medium to longer term. >>
That's true. But if you want to make manufacturers reduce emissions, what you have to do is to say well in advance how you propose to tax cars based on emissions.
Then that gives the manufacturers a chance to tweak/re-design/re-map their engines, rather than being stuck where they are with, as I understand it, no possibility of change from where CO2 output originally put the car.
Edited by Optimist on 01/05/2008 at 15:29
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I don't understand all the angst and ire over £50 a year (a tank of petrol - or 200 fags - but please don't mix!). To put it in context since October 2004 our car has cost me £22,000 in running costs (excluding depreciation) I simply don't see the issue.
Autos are a small part of the market for family cars.
As I see it most cars up to 180 or there abouts are either better off or the same on an inflation adjusted basis.
My V5 says 225 first thing I checked on budget day!
Maybe the VXR replacement I want will be a possibility ..............
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"hxj" writes "Tthere's an awful lot of nonsense spoken about this. The number of 'normal family cars' caught isn't really that great."
But is this really true ?
I ask, because I own a Focus LX (2004 model year) fitted with the popular Zetec E 1.8 engine. That has a CO2 rating of 181 which is the exact starting band of the next higher VED tier.
So my annual VED rate (£160) before the last Budget will be rising to £260.
There must be a lot of Ford vehicles out there powered by the 1.8 Zetec E. Most of these would be considered family cars.
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You've got to have a dividing line somewhere, I guess.
I just can't see how the Treasury arrived at the dividing lines and seem to recall an AA spokesman saying that he met Treasury officials a week before the budget and nothing had been drawn up.
Can you make green policy on the back of a fag packet?
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"I don't understand all the angst and ire over £50 a year (a tank of petrol - or 200 fags - but please don't mix!). To put it in context since October 2004 our car has cost me £22,000 in running costs (excluding depreciation) I simply don't see the issue."
I have to say, comments like this make my blood boil. Do you work for Brown. My tax is going up £100 (for now, I expect it to rise again and again). This is on top of massive tax rises across the board, with no noticeable improvement in our daily lives whatsoever. How many more 'it's only a £100' are we supposed to put up with. The reason these wasters get away with it is because people just meekly accept it.
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I just can't see how the Treasury arrived at the dividing lines ..........
The bands start at "up to 100 g/km" CO2 emissions. They then go up in ranges of 10 g/km up to 171-180 g/km, then there's a range of 20 g/km for the next band of 181-200 g/kg, a range of 25 g/km for the next band of 201-225 g/km, a range of 30 g/km for the next band of 226-255 g/kg, and finally "over 255 g/km".
I can't see that it could be any neater or more logical.
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I can't see that it could be any neater or more logical. >>
Sorry. I can't follow the logic that changes from an increment of 10g/km, to 20, then 25, then 30.
Even if I could, there's no logic in the increased VED. So from 120-130 it jumps by £60; from 130-140 by £20; from 140-150 by £10; from 150-160 by £30 and so, seemingly irrationally, on.
If more g/km of CO2 means worse, then shouldn't the increments of increased VED go up at the same rate? Unless the extra 10g/km from 140-150 are far less damaging than the extra 10g/km from 120-130.
What do you think?
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Sorry. I can't follow the logic that changes from an increment of 10g/km to 20 then 25 then 30. What do you think?
Above a certain level, the higher the emissions the smaller the number of cars in each band. If you stuck to ranges of 10 g/km the number of bands would start to become unwieldy. If you took your argument to the limit all bands would have ranges of 10 g/km right up to infinity.
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I wouldn't take it to the limit. There must be a known actual maximum emission for a UK registered car. You could start there and work down.
And what about the differences in VED increase between bands?
If there are fewer cars in the higher emission bands, that's where you have the £60 jump, not right at the bottom?
No?
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Sorryyyyy.. you are looking at this ALL wrong.
You are looking at it as a Green Measure.
And as anyone knows, it's NOT. It's a revenue raising matter.
So you give the cheapest band to the cars you know will sell least .. so you lose realtively little revenue.
Then a big hike to more "normally" sized cars.
Hey presto.. a Green tax which raises more money.
Anyone who believes a word the Government says about cars, tax, and green issues is an alien.. or rather is not lliving in this real world.
It's all about how much tax you can raise.
After all, IF the Government was serious, we'd see electric cars going in and out of No 10.
Edited by madf on 01/05/2008 at 16:55
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"You are looking at it as a Green Measure.
And as anyone knows, it's NOT. It's a revenue raising matter."
Absolutely right madf.
If anyone really thinks that these measures will have any effect on "the environment" are sadly mistaken. Even if "Climate change" is real then do you think that changing the tax by a few hundred quid on a few cars (compared to world numbers) in the UK is going to solve (or even help to solve) the problem?
Even if every motorist in the UK changed their car for a "less polluting" model it would have little effect - except maybe to raise carbon emissions in the production of the new cars.
No, all it does is raise a few million quid for the gov to waste on vain projects while making life difficult for a sizeable number of motorists who have little choice in the car that they buy. Those who can choose exactly the car they want will continue to do so - regardless of another few hundred on VED.
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Britain as a whole is responsible for 2.2% of global man made CO2 emissions.
Friends of the Earth claim the TOTAL transport sector emissions in the UK account for 27% of the total CO2 produced. They claim most of this is down to road transport (total carp - I suspect aviation is a far bigger contributor). However, even if all of this 27% is down to road transport, you could take every car, van, motorcycle, bus and truck off the roads tomorrow, and it would reduce global CO2 emissions by a little over half of one percent.
Of course, this would destroy the economy and people's lives overnight, and is therefore completely impractical, but it perfectly illustrates the complete pointlessness of taxation related persecution of motorists. Even if you banned everyone and everything from the roads, you would make no perceptible difference whatsoever.
We are being fleeced. There is no other conclusion that seems remotely plausible.
Cheers
DP
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madf, I find myself agreeing with you yet again!
It is of course about the money, cleverly dressed up as a green initiative to deflect direct criticism.
Which makes it all the more maddening, how much more of my tax money, as a motorist can they get away with taking before I have no more to give?
The solution isn't even as simple as just swapping to a car that is cheaper to tax, as that would cost me more than keeping what I have already. That is what makes this so frustrating. Even if I had a much cheaper car to tax, you can be sure that soon enough, when the numbers of cheaper cars increase, the tax bands will be shifted again, and suddenly, my Polo Bluemotion (or whatever) will be a gas guzzler and subject to £500+ taxation!!
I can see the need to have this payable in monthly instalments soon, who has £400 and more lying around to spend in a single month? Especially if it happens to fall the same time as insurance and service, which it often does because at least two get synchronised from when you buy the car. My Dad always told me cars were too much trouble and way too expensive!! LOL!
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madf said: >> Sorryyyyy.. you are looking at this ALL wrong.
You are looking at it as a Green Measure.>>
I wasn't. I was wondering if L'escargot would continue to try to defend the indefensible.
I don't believe green issues concern Brown or Darling. I do believe they are revenue raising. It's re-assuring to see that other people see the bandings and hikes in VED in the same cynical way I do. In a strange sort of way it's vaguely re-assuring about B&D too, inasmuch as someone (probably a Treasury civil servant) does seem to have thought this one through.
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I may be a bit slow on all this, but the pre-2001 cars dont get a mention, surely there are more pre 2001 cars than post 2001 cars on the road??
I dont want pre 2001 cars to be taxed more. Does anybody know what plans they have for their VED rates?
I like how the media call a 2001 car "old", thats still new compared to what I drive!
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I'm outraged at how this is going to hit us poor impoverished students in the pocket. I will soon have to pay £430 a year just to tax my car so I can go to Uni. This is terrible! It's an outrage! I thought the Government was pro higher education.
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I'm a bit late coming back to this thread but my initial instinct tells me that the new bands were drawn up with maximum revenue increases in mind ie make sure most cars go up a band at least. Any people who are better off WILL be the minority.
It's not small beer either. We run an 05 Galaxy and a 53 Vectra. Current VED costs are £420 pa - this increases to £715 next year. And for what? Nothing, it's just because they can get away with it under some climate change/eco mumbo jumbo.
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............ us poor impoverished students ......... I will soon have to pay £430 a year just to tax my car
Impoverished? With a band L car? You clearly don't know the meaning of the word impoverished. Some students may be impoverished, but you're not. When I was a student in the 1950s I couldn't afford a car at all, and at one point I had to start selling things just to be able to exist. Just think yourself lucky that you're not a pensioner with only the basic state pension to live on. I have no sympathy for you at all.
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when the numbers of cheaper cars increase, the tax bands will be shifted again
Exactly!
While people in developing world are going from walking to motoring, the reverse is gradually happening in rip-off Britain.
Govt. is bankrupt - they need money by hook or crook.
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The pre 2001 cars will stay on a flat rate it seems so sssshhhhhh before we all get done over too...
Discussions of higher taxation for higher banded cars was mentioned when they were first introduced and it was suggested then the bands would be whacked up at the first opportunity. Adding the extra band was a test to see what the public thought. The anti 4x4 brigade were very vocal clearly showing that the general public wanted massive tax increases for cars they didn't drive. Unfortunately they have been hoisted on their own petard and been done over for their ordinary 2 litre car as it was too good a money making opportunity to miss. The greens were clamouring for ages about increasing the highest bands and there were figures of £400 - £600 put about for the top rate 2 or 3 years ago. It was rumoured then HMG backed down but here it is again so everyone was relieved when the top band last year was only £300 or so. There have been rumours for several years with different figures. Clearly when there is little protest then they will go with those figures that cause the fewest ripples while still raking in as much cash as possible to waste.
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It's simple.
The Government spend money cos it's not theirs, it's ours. So they waste about 30% - but do not have the expertise in advance to know where they will waste it.
(see the 10p tax fiasco: any fool could tell it would be a problem .. and lots of bright people did. This Government says it listens. it does. And then ignores it)
Anyone who thinks it is bad now had better worry cos it will get much worse imo. The Current Government forecast is for the economy to gorw over 2% this year. I reckon 1% will be good. And that will be a BIG hole in Gov't finances.. and more tax rises.
As motorists are sitting targets.. beware.
I have been very careful in the above NOT to tell you my opinions in full as I would upset the swear filter.
I am no financial advisor although a former accountant. But anyone who is living beyong their means driving a car which is expensive to run.. well it's not too late to sell and buy cheaper.
It will get a lot worse imo.
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In a previous posting "DP" suspects that aviation is a far bigger contributor to the UK's CO2 emissions than is road transport.
That's not true.
Total transport emissions are 27 per cent of which aviation, according to Defra, comprises 6.29 per cent.
Mind you, in recent years UK aviation (thanks to the arrival of the budget carriers) has been growing fast but I suspect matters will slow down now that so many families are thinking of scrapping their annual overseas holidays this year.
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"The pre 2001 cars will stay on a flat rate it seems so sssshhhhhh before we all get done over too..."
For now, you're next!
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In a previous posting "DP" suspects that aviation is a far bigger contributor to the UK's CO2 emissions than is road transport. That's not true.
It still doesn't change the core of my argument, which was based on road transport contributing 100% to all transport sector emissions (which of course it doesn't).
I still can find no facts that support any argument that even a double figure percentage reduction in British road transport will make the slightest difference to global man made CO2 emissions, given that the impossible "ideal" of total abolition wouldn't even achieve a single percentage point change in the global total.
As China and the US's emissions grow year on year, it's logical to assume this derisory percentage will continue to shrink even further. Why are we being made to feel guilty about, and being punished for, using our cars?
Cheers
DP
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