£650 Road tax… ridiculous

[smifffymoto]

Where is the incentive to buy an older car with an original purchase price of over £40,000 when you get hammered with £650 road tax.

The system seems rigged to sell cars rather than keep older ones on the road.

[andy43]

smifffymoto said:

Where is the incentive to buy an older car with an original purchase price of over £40,000 when you get hammered with £650 road tax.

The system seems rigged to sell cars rather than keep older ones on the road.

650 is cheap. Anything I fancy from a 56 plate to a 17 plate seems to be close to 800 quid. A 67 plate model of the same car is currently 190. Makes no sense having such a huge jump, but it’s for the planet apparently.

[mike9009]

Need to choose more carefully. We have three vehicle in our household and don't pay any road tax each year (for the moment)

1982 VW 2.0 camper
2015 Cooper D
2015 DS3

[LightweightLouisDanvers]

You'd nearly think they didn't want people to drive these big old ice cars and would prefer you scrap them and buy something like......a new clean, green, vote winning ev perhaps? 🤔

[7 5 7]

Only £50'ish a month, if you look at that way for something you really want.

Many happily pay more than that for mobile phone contract, or a round of drinks every week, or a rubbish meal in a pub every month.

[Hub]

smifffymoto said:

Where is the incentive to buy an older car with an original purchase price of over £40,000 when you get hammered with £650 road tax.

The system seems rigged to sell cars rather than keep older ones on the road.

It's only for the first 5 years of the car's life?

[Dog Star]

Hub said:

It's only for the first 5 years of the car's life?

Er no. It’s forever (effectively)!

My SL is a group M (I think; it’s the highest group) and it’s something like £750 now.

The OHs 20 year old SLK is £430 or so plus we have a diesel C class estate and three motorbikes (a 1000, a 700 and a 250). It costs more to tax than insure them. Bonkers.

[NDNDNDND]

andy43 said:

smifffymoto said:

Where is the incentive to buy an older car with an original purchase price of over £40,000 when you get hammered with £650 road tax.

The system seems rigged to sell cars rather than keep older ones on the road.

650 is cheap. Anything I fancy from a 56 plate to a 17 plate seems to be close to 800 quid. A 67 plate model of the same car is currently 190. Makes no sense having such a huge jump, but it’s for the planet apparently.

I did wonder of they should have retrospectively applied the flat tax to everything that went before, especially as most of the cars that benefitted from the very low tax rates were diesel.

But that probably would have been perceived as encouraging 'polluting' cars, so not 'on message' enough.

[ARHarh]

mike9009 said:

Need to choose more carefully. We have three vehicle in our household and don't pay any road tax each year (for the moment)

1982 VW 2.0 camper
2015 Cooper D
2015 DS3

The 2 2015's will now be £20 each, that's a rather big percentage increase

[Hub]

Dog Star said:

Hub said:

It's only for the first 5 years of the car's life?

Er no. It’s forever (effectively)!

My SL is a group M (I think; it’s the highest group) and it’s something like £750 now.

The OHs 20 year old SLK is £430 or so plus we have a diesel C class estate and three motorbikes (a 1000, a 700 and a 250). It costs more to tax than insure them. Bonkers.

Agreed in those older emissions based bands, but the OP is seemingly referring to the current 'expensive car supplement' or whatever it is called, for cars with a list price over £40k.

[andy43]

NDNDNDND said:

andy43 said:

smifffymoto said:

Where is the incentive to buy an older car with an original purchase price of over £40,000 when you get hammered with £650 road tax.

The system seems rigged to sell cars rather than keep older ones on the road.

650 is cheap. Anything I fancy from a 56 plate to a 17 plate seems to be close to 800 quid. A 67 plate model of the same car is currently 190. Makes no sense having such a huge jump, but it’s for the planet apparently.

I did wonder of they should have retrospectively applied the flat tax to everything that went before, especially as most of the cars that benefitted from the very low tax rates were diesel.

But that probably would have been perceived as encouraging 'polluting' cars, so not 'on message' enough.

A sliding scale instead of a series of cliffs would be sensible.
I’ve always thought a mileage based tax might be more appropriate - stick it on fuel - that way the more you burn the more you pay. Low use old petrols would then continue to be valued rather than being scrapped. Something like a £1500 2007 3 litre Laguna or Subaru would still be perfectly viable if the tax wasn’t so daft.

[bennno]

smifffymoto said:

Where is the incentive to buy an older car with an original purchase price of over £40,000 when you get hammered with £650 road tax.

The system seems rigged to sell cars rather than keep older ones on the road.

You are mixing things up.

The 40k surcharge is for just the first 5 years on cars post 17, then tax drops back to £190.

Anything early 17 plate or older, is emissions based and can be up to £750 ongoing (think Range Rover,Mustang v8, Aston)

So low emissions cars work best as a pre 17 where they can be £20 a year, high emissions post April 17 where they are £190 after 5 years.

[200Plus Club]

mike9009 said:

Need to choose more carefully. We have three vehicle in our household and don't pay any road tax each year (for the moment)

1982 VW 2.0 camper
2015 Cooper D
2015 DS3

To be fair this is pistonheads, it's a forum set up to discuss exciting performance cars...
:-)

[HarryW]

LightweightLouisDanvers said:

You'd nearly think they didn't want people to drive these big old ice cars and would prefer you scrap them and buy something like......a new clean, green, vote winning ev perhaps? ??

That theory fell apart this April with BEV’s being included into VED and the Luxury car tax too.

[Dog Star]

mike9009 said:

Need to choose more carefully. We have three vehicle in our household and don't pay any road tax each year (for the moment)

1982 VW 2.0 camper
2015 Cooper D
2015 DS3

This proves how utterly moronic the system is: I’ve just got myself a 2008 250cc off road bike. Two hundred and fifty ccs. It’s £70 to tax it.

How is it even remotely logical that this pays multiples of what quite a lot of cars pay? It’s totally daft.

[Stick Legs]

It’s all relative I suppose.

Looked at new shaped Range Rover yesterday.

The dealer has an SV in stock.
£170k.

£5000 tax on registration then £650/yr after that.

My current older Range Rover is £760/yr.

Not enough of a saving on the annual amount to justify the change.

Joking aside it seems bizarre that relatively hum-drum cars are caught in the ‘luxurious vehicle’ tax band.

[J4CKO]

200Plus Club said:

mike9009 said:

Need to choose more carefully. We have three vehicle in our household and don't pay any road tax each year (for the moment)

1982 VW 2.0 camper
2015 Cooper D
2015 DS3

To be fair this is pistonheads, it's a forum set up to discuss exciting performance cars...
:-)

It’s mainly a motoring forum, covering all aspects and folk have different needs, wants and budgets.

He has a point, choose well and let’s not miss that with the snarky comments.

My wife is paying £600 odd as her two year old car was over 40k.

I pay £255 on a Jaguar XJ which I think is quite reasonable and £200 ish for a Fiesta ST, which is quite modified, great thing about modifications, ok it affects insurance but not VED even if it has over 50% more power.

[Smint]

Hub said:

It's only for the first 5 years of the car's life?

So far and let us hope it stays that way, but does anyone trust the regime, any regime of the last 5 decades, allegedly ruling over a country that is already effectively bankrupt and getting worse (thanks to all politicians of the period) each day not taxing whatever they feel they can get away with, the already soaked motorist has been a main cash cow for years.

ie they tried back taxing some years back, when they applied the new tax bands for cars regd from March 23 2006, initially that was back dated to 2001 regd vehicles but the backlash caused them to rescind the backdating hence why high rate vehicles regd 2001 t0 March 2006 (currently) escape the very highest rates.
I remember it well because tried in vain to buy a well priced 55 plate H6 Outback at the time, when suddenly that reg was included in the new top VED rates, it was few months before things were revised to current status, someone with insider knowledge selling the car, i'd missed it but the well spoken selller (imagine Jacob Rees-Mogg) said don't worry there'll be lots for sale in a few days.

If a politician tells you its daylight outside anyone with an ounce of sense is going outside to check.

[DanL]

On the purchase price of a car, £650 to tax isn’t really worth worrying about, surely? It’s just something to factor in as a running cost, like insurance, until the car is old enough to drop out of the surcharge?

[wyson]

Its only for the first 5 years though. Then the supplimental ‘luxury’ car tax drops, so you’d get £410 off.