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Nothing is for free in this world anything given away now will be recovered with interest in other ways probably after an election.
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>Car prices have fallen because nobody can afford to buy them anymore!
And by the look of things, if prices fall much further makers won't be able to afford to make them any more. Until, I suppose, enough frustration builds up among the public that enjoys being seen in a trendy new vehicle for spending to start again.
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The plan to increase VED caused chaos in the used car market and seriously damaged the industry. That effects consumers as well as the motor trade. Consumers have been struggling to sell high VED cars and dealers obviously cant take them because they cant move them on either. At the same time, prices of small "economical" cars have spiralled. The obvious thing to do is buy a car you actually want now they are so cheap and be happy in the knowledge that it will take a lot of years of higher VED to to make your decision fanancially unwise.
More importantly, how can the government be allowed to plunge an industry into turmoil and introduce another retrospective tax. It is unthinkable and I can not believe that they even considered it. The government obviously is too divorcedd from reality or has no interest in the people it alledgedly represents. Yes, CO2 is important, but cars are not the most important polluters. There are other things to address in the World too.
Retrospective is the key word. Can we retrospectively vote the government out of power? I dont think so.
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So say in the next Budget - Feb 2009 ? , the Chancellor announces that there is no retrospective increase in VED on say 4X4s but as from that date there will be an increase on new registered vehicles, could that mean a potential boost in the second hand market for good pre Budget date cars or whatever date was the cut off?
Edited by Fullchat on 11/11/2008 at 19:23
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I don't think VED has done all the damage in the car market. People are skint as they can't borrow and afraid of losing their jobs.
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>I don't think VED has done all the damage in the car market.
Neither do I but it stuck the boot in at just the wrong time ie. while it was going down. Much like Stamp Duty and the worthless HIPs did to the housing market.
It was also incredibly stupid because if they had simply said that the new VED bands and rates would only apply to new vehicles purchased after April 2009 most folks would have accepted the enviro. excuse and made adjustments. As it is, it only highlighted how desperate they were for cash and how dishonest they were prepared to be to get it.
Like the 10p tax fiasco, their assurances that 95% of car owners would be "better or no-worse off" were shown to be complete lies and that the biggest relative increases would hit lower income "hard-working families".
Nulab's contempt for taxpayers and the private sector was summed up perfectly by Ed Balls.
"So what?!"
Kevin...
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So say in the next Budget - Feb 2009 ?
You won't have to wait that long:
taxplus.mercerhole.co.uk/2008/11/articles/budget/p.../
November 10, 2008 by Barry Hallam
"Pre-Budget Report 2008 - This Week?
It is being reported by the BBC that Gordon Brown has stated that the Pre Budget Report will be ?in a few days?. "
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Moan moan moan.... Never look a gift horse in the mouth, they used to say back in the days of civilisation...
Am I wrong, or are some doomed to higher costs now the changes have been suppressed for the time being? If so, sorry.
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Not good enough.... as I have said earlier Retrospective legislation is totally unfair by nature. I saw Angela Eagle get quite uppety after she was grilled by ITN in the summer after Brown said in PM that drivers would be better off but was proved wrong (funnily the BBC didn't run the story). With total arrogance and disregard she said that her department were pressing ahead despite "big beasts" (ha ha ha) like Jack Straw coming out against it.
As said a bit late given its impact on the second hand car market.
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I agree retrospective legislation is unfair, but this change is *not* retrospective.
Retrospective legislation would be charging you for duty for past years. In other words you would get a bill for extra car tax for the last 5 years. That *is* unfair, because you have no chance to change what you did in the past.
There's nothing retrospective about the proposed VED changes; they apply only to future years; it's just the rate you will pay which changes for some vehicles.
So you have the opportunity to change your vehicle if you really think it is sensible to save a few hundred pounds on VED while taking a massive loss on your car.
Seems to me this is one of those issues a lot of people just love getting upset about.
Chill out. VED is only a tiny part of the cost of owning a car anyway, it makes very little difference. Life is too short to get upset about such things.
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.. but this change is *not* retrospective.
Oh no, not that debate again. It was done to death in the previous VED threads.
Chill out. VED is only a tiny part of the cost of owning a car anyway, it makes very little difference.
You and I and a few others on this forum and maybe 1% of the UK population may understand that. However, the rest of the population clearly don't, as is evidenced by discussions on forums [supported by real life impact at the Traders] by the mad rush to abandon high VED cars and "downsize" to low VED cars.
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All taxes and rebates are retrospective. They ought to apply only to people who voted for this government.
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I understand its only a small percentage of the overall cost, and I certainly wouldn't change my car as a result of it, but there is a principle here. Whether you call it retrospective or not, and I agree it does not strictly meet the definition of retrospective, hiking taxes on cars people already own is like shooting fish in a barrel. It's underhand and immoral. To quote an old Etonian former boss of mine, it's "not playing with a straight bat".
Apart from initially outright lying to the country by saying the majority of drivers would be better off, their continued insistence that it will "help the environment" is a double insult. There is not one scenario where this can possibly help the environment, whether it's nothing changing, the premature scrapping of perfectly good cars, or cars continuing to be run by new owners. Even the car-hating green groups such as Friends of the Earth said it wouldn't help the environment one jot, brought green taxation into disrepute, and wanted nothing to do with it.
This issue sums up perfectly the arrogance, complacency and complete failure to grasp the law of unintended consequences that plagues this government.
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Apart from initially outright lying to the country by saying the majority of drivers would be better off their continued insistence that it will "help the environment" is a double insult. There is not one scenario where this can possibly help the environment whether it's nothing changing the premature scrapping of perfectly good cars or cars continuing to be run by new owners.
The most common scenario is likely to be that given the plummeting resale value of high-emission cars, their owners will balance their budget by reducing their mileage. Knocking 1500 miles a year (or 30 miles per week) off the annual mileage of a highly-polluting car does indeed help the environment, and that'll be be enough to offset the tax increase even when it bites in full.
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owners will balance their budget by reducing their mileage.
That makes the assumption that that mileage is flexible.
If I don't change my place of residence or my place of work I can't reduce the bulk of my mileage.
For most people IMO most if not all mileage is necessary getting to/from work, shops or whatever. For many people there is not an alternative means of transport for these journeys so the only way to reduce mileage is not to do these journeys, not always possible.
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If I don't change my place of residence or my place of work I can't reduce the bulk of my mileage.
In many cases, not true; it's often possible to reduce part of that commuting mileage by a bit of homeworking or by using public transport for part of the mix, or by occasional car-sharing.
For most people IMO most if not all mileage is necessary getting to/from work shops or whatever. For many people there is not an alternative means of transport for these journeys so the only way to reduce mileage is not to do these journeys not always possible.
I would be very surprised indeed if most drivers don't have 15% discretionary miles.
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homeworking
would love to, and could at least 2 days a week, but my employer doesn't allow it. I would like to see government legislation / tax penalties aimed at companies in this area, rather than at joe public following the rules.
using public transport for part of the mix
Already do by as much as is practical.
occasional car-sharing.
Impractical due to geography / working hours.
Given that 95% of the mileage going on my car is for commuting, The only discretion I have is to find another job. In the current economic climate, keeping the one I have is going to be hard enough.
It's still shooting fish in a barrel, and is imposing tax increases on people who, unless they are financially stupid, have no choice but to cough up and pay.
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Given that 95% of the mileage going on my car is for commuting The only discretion I have is to find another job.
That it is a very unusual situation. If you live 50 miles from your place of work, that's nearly 25,000 miles a year commuting. If commuting is 95% of your mileage, then even with a 100-mile round trip to work you're only doing an average of 25 miles a week for all other purposes: shopping, visiting friends, going off on holiday, taking kids to school etc.
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That it is a very unusual situation. If you live 50 miles from your place of work that's nearly 25 000 miles a year commuting. If commuting is 95% of your mileage then even with a 100-mile round trip to work you're only doing an average of 25 miles a week for all other purposes: shopping visiting friends going off on holiday taking kids to school etc.
The numbers are a bit off, but the yes that is essentially correct. I would say my car averages no more than 15-20 miles a week outside of the commute.
All other mileage is done in my wife's car (low VED, low CO2)
I cannot reasonably do any more to reduce the mileage in my allegedly polluting car (which incidentally did 36 mpg on its last tankful!)
There is still no sensible justification for hiking VED to reduce emissions. For starters, it's a fixed cost. You suggest that people will reduce their usage to recoup the cost. I say people will drive their cars as much as possible, given that they pay the same whether they do 500 miles or 50,000. A system under which a 250g/km car doing 5,000 miles a year pays multiple times more than a 125g/km car doing 30,000 is simply a nonsense in emissions reduction terms. It's doesn't even have a tenuous link to the problem it has allegedly been designed to solve.
Don't forget too that the government already taxes fuel at over 200%. This tax *does* hit the most polluting hardest. It automatically adjusts for consumption and mileage, for real world fuel economy, and for driving styles. It already does the job they claim the VED changes will do. It already exists.
I can't believe anyone can fail to see this VED rise for what it is.
DP
Edited by DP on 12/11/2008 at 16:18
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The numbers are a bit off but the yes that is essentially correct. I would say my car averages no more than 15-20 miles a week outside of the commute. All other mileage is done in my wife's car (low VED low CO2)
So swap cars. Use the low-fuel-consumption car for the longer single-occupant trips, and make your savings that way. That may not be your preference, but it's an option for your family to consider if you want to reduce motoring costs despite having made the choice to having a highly-polluting car.
Taxation by CO2 emissions has been around for 7 years now, and I'm astonished that anyone is surprised to see that structure used to penalise the high polluters.
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I'm astonished that anyone is surprised to see that structure used to penalise the high >> polluters.
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One of the problems is that we have different opinions on what is a high polluter most people can see the point in taxing 4x4s and other really high polluters. It's when the definitoion of high polluter has to include normal family cars Mondeos, Vectras etc so that it brings in enough money that the government view seems to differ from reality.
Most people are already doing what they can to keep the costs at a sensible level, throwing extra tax at something people do not see as an unreasonable choice is bound to cause upset.
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Taxation by CO2 emissions has been around for 7 years now and I'm astonished that anyone is surprised to see that structure used to penalise the high polluters.
We're not. We're astonished to see it used to take a huge amount of extra money from those whose banding had already been set, despite the fact that doing so can have no benefit to the environment, and we're astonished to see this change which can have no effect on the environment advertised as a green tax.
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So swap cars. Use the low-fuel-consumption car for the longer single-occupant trips >> and make your savings that way. That may not be your preference but it's an option for your family to consider if you want to reduce motoring costs despite having made the choice to having a highly-polluting car.
The low consumption car is the family car with the big boot, 5* NCAP rating and the extra height for lifting the baby in. It goes with the kids. And I would question how any well maintained car that does 36 mpg can be considered "highly polluting".
So what is your counter argument to my suggestion (and that of Friends of the Earth) that it doesn't benefit the environment?
Edited by DP on 12/11/2008 at 20:27
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The most common scenario is likely to be that given the plummeting resale value of high-emission cars their owners will balance their budget by reducing their mileage.
Is it?
With the same amount of evidence, I would like to suggest that the most likely scenario is that people will want to get their moneys-worth out of their car, and seeing as their cost per mile will only drop by doing more mileage will use their car more if anything.
After all, you don't spend a bundle on a new HD TV and then refuse to switch it on because of the electricity cost do you?
In fact I don't think this is any more likely that your own scenario. I consider that the likely result is that their will be no change at all in the usage of the vehicles already on the road, but the government will rake in a bit of extra money, with a good excuse as long as you don't actually look into the logic.
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I would like to suggest that the most likely scenario is that people will want to get their moneys-worth out of their car and seeing as their cost per mile will only drop by doing more mileage will use their car more if anything. After all you don't spend a bundle on a new HD TV and then refuse to switch it on because of the electricity cost do you?
Bad comparison: the electricity cost of a TV is trivial, perhaps 10p for a whole evening's viewing, but the fuel cost of a 225+g/km car is more like 15p/mile. Leave the TV off all week, and you've saved less than £1, so it's not going to make much difference to your finances ... but you can save a lot more money by cutting down car use.
If, having paid the extra tax, people then use the car more, they've made a bad calculation. Once they've paid their VED, that money is gone whether the car is standing idle or not, and they pay out the same marginal cost per mile whether they drive 1 mile per day or ten miles. Some people may indeed do that, but if they can afford to buy all the extra petrol then their complaints about the cost of VED ring a bit hollow.
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If having paid the extra tax people then use the car more they've made a bad calculation. Once they've paid their VED that money is gone whether the car is standing idle or not and they pay out the same marginal cost per mile whether they drive 1 mile per day or ten miles. Some people may indeed do that but if they can afford to buy all the extra petrol then their complaints about the cost of VED ring a bit hollow.
Two points. Easiest and most important first.
1) The complaints are not about the cost of the change to VED - I can afford it quite easily. The complaints are about the underhanded, spineless, based-on-a-lie nature of the changes. I have maintained throughout that I am arguing this point on a moralistic, not a financial, basis.
2) If I were to do one mile per day, then my cost per mile of motoring would be approximately £1.40. (£440 on tax, £73 on petrol, ignoring other costs to keep this simple - the important issue here is the difference in money spent on tax compared to fuel)
If I were to do ten miles per day then it would be 32 pence per mile. (£730 petrol, £440 tax)
How then is there a marginal difference?
Yes, I would be spending more altogether, but I would be getting a hell of a lot more for my money overall.
I think the bad calculation is on your part.
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1) The complaints are not about the cost of the change to VED - I can afford it quite easily. The complaints are about the underhanded spineless based-on-a-lie nature of the changes. I have maintained throughout that I am arguing this point on a moralistic not a financial basis.
The big change was in 2001, when VED was switched from a flat rate to a CO2-based variable rate. All that's happened since then is that those CO2-assessed cars have seen the scale changed, just as happens with income tax, council tax, and plenty of other taxes such as airport tax.
2) If I were to do one mile per day then my cost per mile of motoring would be approximately £1.40. (£440 on tax £73 on petrol ignoring other costs to keep this simple - the important issue here is the difference in money spent on tax compared to fuel) If I were to do ten miles per day then it would be 32 pence per mile. (£730 petrol £440 tax) How then is there a marginal difference? Yes I would be spending more altogether but I would be getting a hell of a lot more for my money overall. I think the bad calculation is on your part.
No, my calculation stands. I referred to "marginal cost per mile", but you are looking at overall cost per mile. From wikipedia: marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost
Marginal cost per mile is the extra cost of doing one extra mile. The VED is a fixed cost, like owning a garage for your car -- once you have a car, it costs the same whether you drive 1 mile or a thousand miles.
Overall cost per mile is a useful figure in budgeting, to decide which type car (if any) you can afford. But in deciding how much to use your car, it's the marginal cost that measures how much you have to pay for each extra mile.
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Overall cost per mile is a useful figure in budgeting to decide which type car (if any) you can afford. But in deciding how much to use your car it's the marginal cost that measures how much you have to pay for each extra mile.
But if I want to get my moneys worth out of my car, rather than just specifically to limit the amount of money it's costing me altogether, then it makes sense to use it more, not less.
We've already established than I'm not annoyed because I can't afford the cost. I'm not daft enough to buy a car which puts me on the breadline in order to run it. I could comfortably afford to do many more miles than I do.
Since I'm being forced to pay a big chunk of money anyway, might as well get the best use from it.
Overall cost per mile is still useful for deciding whether I'm getting my money's worth from my car. It's biggest problem is that it doesn't support your argument.
I find the idea that people who have been forced to pay a large premium in order to own something (which they already own) but have chosen to keep that item, will therefore use it less, somewhat laughable.
Edited by BazzaBear {P} on 13/11/2008 at 17:38
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Overall cost per mile is still useful for deciding whether I'm getting my money's worth from my car. It's biggest problem is that it doesn't support your argument. I find the idea that people who have been forced to pay a large premium in order to own something (which they already own) but have chosen to keep that item will therefore use it less somewhat laughable.
They are not paying to own it or keep it (no VED if SORNed); they are paying for the right to use it (not sure how much difference that makes, but is an distinction).
Your argument makes no sense for people are financially squeezed, and I accept that you have no problem affording the car's costs. You're in a very different position to all those folks clamouring that the VED increase impoverishes them, but it's still an interesting situation to examine, even though we have been led to believe that it's rare.
This question is initially about different points on the wealth scale. If someone is skint, their concern will be to save every penny, so they'll have to claw back the tax increase by reducing usage, because otherwise they'll be short of cash for the mortgage/rent/children's food/etc (and I think it's very sad that you find that situation "laughable"). At the other extreme, if someone has stupendous amounts of money, then marginal changes in value are irrelevant, because they don't have to worry about value. So your example is of someone who can afford more, but still keeps a keen eye on value-for-money.
The first point is that in applications like this, household economics are very different to those of a commercial product. If the average unit cost of my factory's widget box declines with increased production, then it obviously pays me to make more of them (assuming I can still sell at the same unit price). But in a most households, more consumption cannot usually lead to more income.
Most of this is about perceptions, and there are several different ways of looking at these things. I'm reminded of the supermarket practice of selling three-for-the-price-of-two: buy more, and the unit price goes down. However, you've still spent more money than if you had bought one. Whether that's perceived as better value depends on how much you want the extra items, and something similar applies to using the car. Given that the car is costing a higher proportion of your income, do you increase that cost further, or try to reduce it? I guess some people may choose to spend more, but I think that's the illogical bit.
Here's why: by using the car more, I may reduce the unit-cost of each mile, but I'm still further reducing the money available for everything else. Those extra miles still mean less spending elsewhere, or reduced savings, and you are assuming that the value people place on all the other things they could do with their money decreases when the car's fixed costs go up.
If you were right, and the rational response to fixed costs had the sort of inverse effect you describe, then the best way to reduce car usage would be to cut the fixed costs (make insurance cheaper, making buying cars cheaper). I'd be interested to see any example you can come up with of how price signals work in this way. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_signals )
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(and I think it's very sad that you find that situation "laughable").
If you're going to twist my words to try to make out that I'm showing scorn to those less fortunate than myself financially, then I'm not going to bother reading the rest of your anti-car rhetoric.
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If you're going to twist my words to try to make out that I'm showing scorn to those less fortunate than myself financially then I'm not going to bother reading the rest of your anti-car rhetoric.
We were discussing how people respond to price signals, so I'm surprised that you manage to describe it as "anti-car rhetoric".
Anyone on a tight budget would have to respond to the VED increase by reducing some other expenditure or going into debt, and you chose to describe the idea that they would cut car use as "laughable". Sorry if you feel that's twisting your words; it still looks to me like a reasonable interpretation, but if I got it wrong, then I hope you can explain what exactly you find so funny about the situation, because I have clearly misunderstood your sense of humour.
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You have misunderstood nothing. I was perfectly clearly describing your attitude and reading of the situation as laughable, not the idea of someone on the breadline.
You have deliberately misinterpreted in order to put forward a ridiculous argument that I am some kind of Marie Antoinette figure.
I refuse to accept that this was an accidental misinterpretation, whatever else you have proved with your diatribes, you're clearly not that stupid. Since it's not worth arguing a point with someone willing to take such steps to score points rather than actually continue to address the real point in question, I'm not going to bother any longer.
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Even the car-hating green groups such as Friends of the Earth said it wouldn't help the environment one jot brought green taxation into disrepute and wanted nothing to do with it.
Not true. Friends of the Earth explicitly support this measure, and call for the government to go further by subsidising the scrapping of old gas guzzlers: see www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/ved_04082008...l
You may be thinking of a comment by the Director of Greenpeace: tinyurl.com/6fn84r
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Beg your pardon, yes. I got my eco groups confused.
With regard to FoE's stance on wishing to see healthy older cars of any kind prematurely scrapped, frankly I would suggest they have no comprehension of environmental impact whatsoever. Shocking for a so-called environmental protection group.
Given that these scrapped cars would need to be replaced (in the real world), and demand for new cars and the intense energy and raw material input they require would increase as a result, any claim this is environmentally beneficial is at best open to serious debate.
There have been various studies looking into the comparative environmental impact of buying a new car, and of keeping an older car on the road, and not one that I have read supports this view that scrapping an old car and buying a new one makes any sense whatsoever from a green perspective. I read one seemingly well researched report recently comparing the overall environmental impact of buying and running a new Prius against a 10 yr old, 35 mpg Toyota Tercel. With the total environmental cost taken into account, it apparently takes 100,000 miles for the Prius to "pay off" its manufacturing energy debt, and start to become more eco friendly than the 10yr old banger.
Edited by DP on 14/11/2008 at 00:21
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Strange how years ago the greens' car of choice was the Citroen 2CV, one of the few cars that couldn't be converted to run on unleaded!
I agree about the environmental impact of building new cars..... I once read that one of the most environmentally friendly car manufacturers was Volvo due to the longevity of their products.
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Retrospective legislation would be charging you for duty for past years. In other words you would get a bill for extra car tax for the last 5 years. That *is* unfair, because you have no chance to change what you did in the past.
However you want to label it, if you bought in the past under different VED rules, you're only chance of changing it is to take an enhanced loss by selling - you lose either way bacause you can't reverse that buying decision.
VED is only a tiny part of the cost of owning a car anyway, it makes very little difference. Life is too short to get upset about such things.
Correction , it was tiny, it will be (or would have been) ~10% or more of the value of some larger/older cars now, paid annually. That's a considerable difference to get 'upset' about in my view & will penalise those who need a larger car/suv/people-carrier etc. & could only afford to buy something older - which probably means they weren't that well-off in the first place.
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"VED can be 10% or more of the value of used vehicles".
Why why why are so many on here obsessed with the notional value of their car if they chose to sell it??? Really, I don't get it.
Say your car is notionally only worth £2k. VED is £200, so yeah, it's 10% of your car's value. So, if you sell the car, you've got £2k cash and you haven't paid the £200 VED. Brilliant.
But you've now got no car. So, assuming that you still need / want an equivalent vehicle, you need to spend the cash you've got on another car. You could spend £2k again, and then pay the VED, and you're back to square 1. Or, but a smaller car, and say pay £35 VED, but now your car isn't what you wanted, and is likely to have cost you more.
The 'worth' of your car is completely irrelevant unless you don't need a car any more (okay, I now that's not actually true, but it's as true as all the other stupid arguments we here on this).
"It runs great, but I won't repair it because it would cost more than it's worth". Really? If it's repaired then you've got a fully functional car again, with none of the risks and hassles of getting a new one, which might be more of a dog (or it might not). Or you can trade up, spending more than the repair would have cost. You might want to do so, and that's fair enough, but it doesn't necessarily make economic sense.
The complete inability to think beyond incredibly simple concepts is one of the main reasons that this country is heading for such a massive mess at the moment.
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"VED can be 10% or more of the value of used vehicles".
Why why why are so many on here obsessed with the notional value of their car if they chose to sell it??? Really, I don't get it.
Say your car is notionally only worth £2k. VED is £200, so yeah, it's 10% of your car's value. So, if you sell the car, you've got £2k cash and you haven't paid the £200 VED. Brilliant.
No, I'm afraid you don't get it. The point I was replying to was one of running costs & (effective) retrospective high-VED on low-value 2nd-hand cars. The enhanced VED rates make alot of difference if your car cost you (note: 'cost you' - not sitting around obsessing about it, but 'cost you'...) £4K, then to find next years VED eats into your limited budget by at least 10% of its value, which equals a big part of your budget.
So, the point as simply as I can make it is: poorer people who can't afford a new low-VED large car are regressively 'taxed' by galloping VED rates if they've bought that which they could afford before high-VEDs were introduced. Brilliant.
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how can the government be allowed to plunge an industry into turmoil and introduce another retrospective tax.
Ah, the old "retrospective" chestnut :( The VED changes are not retrospective: they will apply only to future years. Sure, the amount you pay next year will be influenced by decisions made earlier, but that's the same with many other taxes, such as council tax.
And "industry"?? What "industry"? There is very little car industry in this country, and the few major producers (Nissan, Honda and Toyota) are busy making relatively efficient cars which don't get hit by the increases. The rest is a trade, a trade consisting overwhelmingly of imports which hit the balance of payments.
One of the ironies of all this brouhaha is that the disruption of the motor trade is caused more by the panic induced by the noisy whining about the increases than the by the increases themselves. The highest increase is for a car emitting over 226g/km, up from £210 in 2006 to £455 in 2010. That's an extra £245, which is not small change to most people, but it is a small increase in the cost of running a car. Few vehicles in that category average over 30mpg, so on a typical 10,000 miles pa, they'll cost about £1500 a year in fuel. It only takes a 15% cut in the miles drive to offset the tax increase, and that 15% cut doesn't have to be done in one year, since the increases are being phased in
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Excuse me for being ungrateful, but 'delaying' an increase on an already bloated tax metered onto an already overtaxed part of the population is not something that will give me a rush of love for the current government!
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Yes-with due respect I think my previous post was not understood. The government have not shelved the retro element but merely postponed it as Snakey has pointed out. This is what I was railing up against.
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Some very pompous answers on this thread. An extra £245 is a lot of money in my book. All this 'it's only a small part of motoring' is tosh. It's only a small part because everything else is taxed so highly as well. I can't even talk about this Government without spitting poison, I despise them that much.
And I venture that all those 'reduce your mileage' comments come from people who live in a City with a nice tube system. Try leaving home at 5am in a rural area and using public transport. Oh..hang on. I can't because it doesn't exist where I live. (I quite fancy home working..but doubt I'd have a very high arrest rate)
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Some of your "customers" might be quite pleased though! :)
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Some very pompous answers on this thread. An extra £245 is a lot of money in my book. All this 'it's only a small part of motoring' is tosh. It's only a small part because everything else is taxed so highly as well.
Not true. The biggest cost of motoring is depreciation, and the purchase-price tax on new cars in the UK is among the lowest in Europe.
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Not true. The biggest cost of motoring is depreciation, and the purchase-price tax on new cars in the UK is among the lowest in Europe.
Well, by the same logic, the biggest cost of housing is the price - so that means we shouldn't be concerned about the level of council tax or not worry because it's small in relation to the house price?
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Not really. Houses aren't generally depreciating assets. Cars generally are.
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>>Not really. Houses aren't generally depreciating assets. Cars generally are
If you think about it, that just proves & amplifies my point. Even when the 'asset' doesn't depreciate, the level of council tax is mightily important & controversial - even though it's rarely 1.5% of the house price per year. High-VED regimes are like council tax bills of £10,000 pro rata.
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"Not true. The biggest cost of motoring is depreciation, . . ."
Not so true if you keep a new car a long time, as I have done. Not so true if you buy used cars and keep them a long time, as I have also done. True if you are on the "must have a new car every two years" mousewheel.
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There is light at the end of the tunnel. The government has indicated that if they were to bring in road pricing, VED and fuel duty would be scrapped.
No, I don't believe it, either.
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Better to scrap VED and put it on the fuel. Petrol 5p a litre, diesel at least 50p. :-)
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Better to scrap VED and fuel duty and put it on a number plate renewable every year. No insurance and MOT, no number plate.
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Basically captain Chaos, you are advocating transferring the road tax disc to the ( rear ? ) plate - at least inside the car it's hardly worthwhile stealing ... Also on a personal level, can somebody tell me what our family car will be taxed next year ? it's an 04 plate Auto 2.5 petrol Nissan X Trail, rated at 230 g / co2 per km..... the current tax runs out on 31st Jan... when are the new bands effective from ?
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can somebody tell me what our family car will be taxed next year ? it's an 04 plate Auto 2.5 petrol Nissan X Trail rated at 230 g / co2 per km..... the current tax runs out on 31st Jan... when are the new bands effective from ?
See www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=20
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I was advocating advertising to all and sundry the car was legal to be on the road, tamper proof fixings are available for number plates as they are being stolen so low lifes can do run-offs from petrol stations. As for a tax disc being safe inside the car, a friend of mine had his window smashed because he'd left a packet of cigarettes on view!
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Which would send inflation go through the roof due to massive rises in Diesel fuelled transport costs.....I don't think so
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Imagine the government suddenly decided to reband houses for council tax. An average 3 bed house would stay the same (approx £1000 pa). 4 bedroom houses and above, because they cost a lot more to heat and light and therefore bad for the environment will be upped to around 4x the amount (£4000 pa). Its not retrospective because they won't be taking tax from previous years and those who didnt see it coming would be daft since larger houses have always had higher council taxes.
Would that be fair?
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Would that be fair?
No, but it would be consistent.
It would also affect the well heeled, public transport served city dwellers who, in my experience, make up the majority of the environmental movement.
Which is why it will never happen.
Cheers
DP
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Imagine the government suddenly decided to reband houses for council tax. An average 3 bed house would stay the same (approx £1000 pa). 4 bedroom houses and above because they cost a lot more to heat and light and therefore bad for the environment will be upped to around 4x the amount (£4000 pa). Its not retrospective because they won't be taking tax from previous years and those who didnt see it coming would be daft since larger houses have always had higher council taxes. Would that be fair?
There are a few flaws in your comparison, most notably that cars are owned for a few years on average, whereas houses are a longer-term purchase, but also that the scale of multiplier you propose is much higher than under the new VED scheme, with a very crude banding.
All the same, it's an interesting question. The old rates system taxed owners roughly in proportion to the house's value, but the council tax uses a banding system to flatten the curve. So band B house (average value £46,000) pays 78% of the Band D charge, whereas a band H house (value £320,00 or over) pays 200% of the band D charge. If the tax was linear (as under the old rating system), the Band H house would pay five times as much as the Band B house, or 380% of the average. That's just short of the for times the average Band D rate, so it's almost the 4X multiplier you suggest.
The switch from rates to council tax was possible because the intermediate poll tax was totally unrelated to wealth or house size, and the council tax seemed much fairer than that arrangement, but the way the bands are charged means that those in big houses pay a lower proportion of the local tax than they used to. Whether or not you think that council tax is fairer than rates depends on whether (or to what extent) you think that the rich should pay more than the poor, but the change you ask about would put us in a similar situation to the 1920 road tax, which charged per horsepower.
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Don't mention the horsepower tax, I can see them using that once more people switch to diesel!!
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Drifting off topic, I recently read Michael Crichton's (RIP) State Of Fear. Great read, from a guy who was always very diligent in his research. H The book is littered with references to real scientific articles which disprove global warming theories and causes. Seems not everyone agrees that cars are evil.
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It is a great read, and sadly he was panned for it. Some of the remarks on a website allowing people to post their condolencies after his recent death were incredibly unkind and disrespectful.
I don't pretend to be a climate scientist, or to understand anything other than the general principles of the systems at work here. However, if I ask myself whether I think that, in the event the powers that be were presented today with irrefutable proof that man made climate change is total hogwash, would they tell us, my answer is sadly 'not a chance'.
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I don't pretend to be a climate scientist or to understand anything other than the general principles of the systems at work here. However if I ask myself whether I think that in the event the powers that be were presented today with irrefutable proof that man made climate change is total hogwash would they tell us my answer is sadly 'not a chance'.
Your premise is nonsense, because science doesn't do "irrefutable proof" -- that sort of certainty belongs in the realms of faith-based systems such as religion. All scientific knowledge is provisional, and the best that science can do is to offer a high degree of probability, based on current interpretations of available data.
However, if politicians were persuaded that there was no need to take actions to prevent global warming, most of them would be delighted, because climate change concerns put them between a rock and a hard place. Sure, climate change has allowed some more taxes, but it also places politicians in conflict with powerful vested interests such as the automobile and aviation businesses, both of which have enough muscle to make politicians lives very uncomfortable.
Climate change is an inherently difficult issue for politicians, because it demands sacrifices now for gains in the future, by creating a need for expensive new sources of energy, new technologies for energy efficiency, etc, all of which diverts funds away from things which promise a much quicker political payback such as tax cuts or increased public spending. That's why we have seen opportunist politicians such as George W. Bush combining the fiscal irresponsibility of huge budget deficits in a boom with resisting demands to do something about climate change; both his policies offered immediate gain, which is why they were easy to sell until the chickens came home to roost. Same goes for Gordon Brown, who did sod all about climate change until recently, and also saddled the UK with massive off-balance-sheet debts in the form of PFI contracts.
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"Underhanded spineless and cynical way this matter has been dealt with"
From politicians surely not!
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Climate Change..if you want to save the planet kill a cow or bung up a volcano. Cars are just a nice easy tax revenue for a corrupt and morally and financially bankrupt Government.
(I still think No Wheels is Gordon Browns press secretary!!)
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Yes looking at "Mr Wheels'" profile it is clear that he is not a car lover so why visit a car forum regularly? Not to say he is not welcome, this is a friendly place and he provokes interesting debate but it is a little odd from his perspective.
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Yes looking at "Mr Wheels'" profile
I think Mr Wheels is a she, originally was No Wheels, until she bought Wheels, and became Now-Wheels.
.. not a car lover
which has been abundantly clear for a long time.
Not to say he is not welcome, this is a friendly place and he provokes interesting debate
and which is why I think she has not been, and I think should not be, hounded out.
I respect her right to express her views, and I think it is refreshing to see things from an alternative viewpoint.
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O.K Mrs Wheels then! However in all seriousness if this retrospective element ever goes ahead someone with something like a 7 year old Zafira 2.0 Automatic is going to face serious increases. Pity the poor man who runs a 2.0 Fiat Marea as well. This envronmental bruhaha has only really kicked off in the past couple of years and so it is is not fair to penalise somebody for buying a car before the CO2 hysteria started when people did not consider these things. As someone above said t is not just the financial issues but the sense that we are being treated like fools. If everyone went and bought a Prius tomorrow the government would loose goodness knows how much. That's all on this one folks, Im sick of it.
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