Hi,
Having been considering buying myself a Toyota Verso I was a bit shocked last night when I came across the proposed Govt increases in road tax from next year and 2010.
OK, it might not be such a shock to most of the people on here but I was amazed to see that the Verso's tax, both for diesel and petrol, is almost doubling in price! So much for CPI inflation!
It occured to me that probably millions of people have not fully realised just by how much their cars are going to increase in tax alone. I am not talking about a big 4x4 here but simply a 1.8 petrol and a 2.2 diesel which, I expect, millions of people have as the engine range in their cars.
I just wonder whether people are going to figure out what the increases are until the new tax bill drops through their letterbox from the DVLA? No wonder some of the Versos I have been looking at have dropped 7K to 9K in just 12 months.
T.
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There is a chance (albeit a slim one given the state of the public finances) that the announced changes to RFL rates will be scrapped / altered / watered down in the Pre Budget Report in October.
But yes, I agree. It's outrageous.
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It is still a ( relatively ) small amount of money to find as a proportion of total annual car costs. For example, my wife and I will jointly spend over £6000 on fuel alone in the next 12 months. The VED costs, to us at least, represent a very small difference in the overall motoring expenditure.
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Not to mention the depriation, whether you agree with it or not the object of the excercise is to make people use more fuel efficient vehicles there may be many side issues on the way it has been introduced but the days of cheap fuel and motoring costs are now well and truley in the history books.
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but the days of cheap fuel and motoring costs are now well and truley in the history books.
Is this really true?
Expressed as a percentage of average earnings i suspect buying and running a car is now as cheap as it has ever been, hence the number of cars on the road and the number of famiies with two or three cars.
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I think the problem is that for a great many people the additional expense will be enough to push them over the financial cliff.
It is genuinely a tax on the tall, the 'larger' person and those with families, etc.
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...especially at the lower end of the car market, where, say, a Y reg 1.8 petrol car will be more expensive to tax than one that is X reg or older, even if they are similar cars.
the Y reg car will be harder to sell and/or worth less, as the VED will be a greater proportion of it's price; even though it is (slightly) newer.
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Quite straight forward really
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(link URL deleted because it didn't work)
Hope this link works...
Easier to read and understand!
Edited by Honestjohn on 22/08/2008 at 22:28
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I think the problem is that for a great many people the additional expense will be enough to push them over the financial cliff.
I dont agree, the huge increase in fuel would have already done that if motoring budgets were that thin. As a proportion of motoring costs (purchase/depreciation/insuarance/fuel) RFL is insignificant.
It is though of course a stupid, Really stupid way to try and make people buy more fuel efficient cars. This should be done by the amount of fuel used. Drop RFL and tax fuel.
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It is genuinely a tax on the tall and those with families etc.
Or increase sales of Berlingos!
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>>My wife and I will jointly spend over £6000 on fuel alone in the next 12 months<<
By my rough calculation this means that you do about 30,000 miles each, and shows why your VED does not seem very significant. It's nothing to feel virtuous about these days, however (but I know a lot of people do it). But it shows how impossible it is to regulate the size of engines people buy. In theory it is logical to do that by taxing the fuel drivers use, but when ours is already dearer than any other country's, is there an answer?
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Actually our fuel is not the dearest our petrol is one of the cheapest in north europe.
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It is still a ( relatively ) small amount of money to find as a proportion of total annual car costs.
Speak for yourself..... For many of those getting on in years, they might do 2 or 3 thousand miles a year, pay less than £100 in insurance and not pay extortionate servicing main dealer costs. For those, a doubling of VED is very noticeable.
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I don't think it really matters how much or little you drive. It's a point of principle. A significant tax hike in the order of 100% (on some cars), with such a shoddily constructed and easily dismantled "green" argument behind it, and such a failure to grasp the laws of unintended consequences, that even the eco groups have publicly distanced themselves from it.
I still think, given the government's electoral woes, and the reported moving of the goalposts (again) on the government's borrowing rules, we'll see some movement in October.
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Fair point Martini. A way of dealing with that low mileage scenario is my Mother's attitude. She is quite old but still likes to drive on occasion. Most of the time she just uses taxis because she can't be bothered with the faff and expense of keeping a car on the road. On the occasions she wants to drive she has a local car hire firm who are happy to rent her one.
She was what would now be called a paramedic when younger and still drives as if she had blue lights and a siren so it's probably just as well she does it in someone else's cars !
She reckons it works out much cheaper to do it this way.
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New VED prices - come as a shock to UK population
How come it is a shock. If it is a shock you must have been living in a cave for the last few months!
There appear to be some people who do not read the press and believe everything printed in the Daily Mail!
Higher VED will result in cheaper (larger, unfavoured) cars. An opportunity for some people to own better specn cars than they could otherwise afford, whilst their total outlay changes insignificantly.
pmh
Edited by pmh on 22/08/2008 at 12:52
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There appear to be some people who do not read the press and believe everything printed in the Daily Mail!
You have to be impressed at their ability to believe everything in the Mail when they don't read any papers though. Do they get the opinions relayed to them by a designated reader?
I have been in communication with my MP and the treasury about the VED rates ever since the budget - but I would have to agree that if people did not specifically read up on it, or were not members of motoring focussed websites, the information about the nature of the changes was (deliberately in my opinion) kept pretty quiet.
Some papers suddenly decided to make a big deal about it a month or two back, but they've gone quiet again now. No doubt they'll throw up a massive stink about it just before the next budget, when it's basically too late.
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Anyone who thinks they won't be able to afford the increased VED could always cut back on other things. Most people's standard of living is now so high they just can't imagine what some of us oldies endured (and didn't complain about) in our younger days ~ coal fire in one room only, no house insulation, no carpets (we had linoleum), no double glazing, outside toilet, no car, no holidays abroad, no meals out, no TV, no computer, no phone of any description, no National Health before 1948, etc etc. I can even remember (in the 1940s) having to take an egg back to the corner shop to be changed because the egg was bad.
High VED? Don't make me laugh!
Edited by L'escargot on 22/08/2008 at 13:15
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I agree with L'escargot. I can just remember the 1940s:-(
I am cutting back...only 1 mistress and one bottle of champagne a day from last week and that was only Dom P.. cheap and nasty.. The Rolls has been replaced by an Audi S8 and I'm afraid the butler has had to go... down the road to buy more caviar.
Joking aside, I am expecting a mini recession which will lead to a degree of frugality returning to some peoples' lives.
Our 15 year old TV went bang last week and was replaced by a digital HD one costing three times as much ...but the new one uses much less power.
Our kitchen light went bang this week and was replaced by one using 10% less power
Through using the aircon less and driving carefully the Yaris fuel consumption has improved 5%
And insuring via the AA we have cut SWMBO's car insurance from £115 to £85 - after a £30 cashback.
As for VED prices coming as a shock, well the Prime Minister claimed that the majority of drivers would benefit from the changes.
Which just goes to prove anyone who trusts a politician is going to be disappointed.
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What do you expect from a PM who hasn't got a driving license, a grip on reality or something?
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Yes - it did come as a shock when the renewal for SWMBOs EOS came in, in September
September 2007 that is. She did not want to pay £210 and that was one factor in its demise. Now she is even happier it went because it would be over £400 now!
Edited by Honestjohn on 22/08/2008 at 22:29
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TBH I think that the press have blown it out of all proportion - the cost of fuel and servicing/consumables far exceeds the RFL, if you can't afford a couple of hundred quid once a year then you can't afford to run a car in the first place!
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>>then you can't afford to run a car in the first place! <<
indeed - many people cannot afford to run a car. They manage with the monthly bills because they are regular, but the big annual bills can be a major shock - especially when they double.
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Then they should learn to do what many of us have done for years - put a sum aside each month/week to cover the annuals plus a little extra for those things which go wrong... its not rocket science and the rises have been known for ages so they could have been saving already if they'd planned!
Some people don't half need mollycoddling these days!!
I should have also asked, what "monthly" bills? Fuel tends to be weekly and the rest annually, unless they pay insurance monthly??
Edited by b308 on 22/08/2008 at 15:29
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So is nobody else annoyed by the principle behind it?
Fuel prices going up - fair enough. Oil is a finite resource and it's becoming more expensive. There's not much can be done about that. RFL going up at 20x the 'official' rate of inflation (for some cars) on the back of an environmental argument which many of the eco groups don't even endorse because it's so tenuous - no excuse whatsoever.
Of course, it's sound advice to budget carefully, avoid wasting money on pointless rubbish, and prioritise spending carefully, but surely it's only the government's abject failure to do any of this that has landed us in this situation to begin with.
Cheers
DP
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So is nobody else annoyed by the principle behind it?
The OP was about the "shock" of the bill when it arrives, not the principle of the increase which has been discussed to death on several other threads, DP.
It seems that despite a media campaign to discredit and highlight its unfairness many people are still not aware of the increases they will face, so they say...
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I can even remember (in the 1940s) having to take an egg back to the corner shop to be changed because the egg was bad.
You had eggs - Luxury!
When I were a lad we just had a picture of chicken we looked at once a week :-)
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