Car tax hike in next ‘Budget’, way out?
Discussion
I’ve just heard on the radio that drivers of 4X4s and sporty cars are gonna get hammered at the next budget – mine’s both 
Two questions (I imagine the second will apply to all red blooded PHers):
1) How will this affect my car being that its 15 years old, will I also get hammered?
2) My tax runs out at the end of May. How can I SORN and renew my tax in double quick time such that I can pay for the next 12 months at the old rate?
Cheers
Two questions (I imagine the second will apply to all red blooded PHers):
1) How will this affect my car being that its 15 years old, will I also get hammered?
2) My tax runs out at the end of May. How can I SORN and renew my tax in double quick time such that I can pay for the next 12 months at the old rate?
Cheers
Well, more taxes keep the poor down, in their place, and stop the riff-raff from aspiring to better themselves.
Yes, raise taxes, keep the poor out of nice cars. Hell, why not add £5 to a litre of petrol, clear the streets of all but the super rich!
The chancellor won't stop until the UK is back where it was c1900 - cars for himself and a few friends, everyone else a pedestrian.
Yes, raise taxes, keep the poor out of nice cars. Hell, why not add £5 to a litre of petrol, clear the streets of all but the super rich!
The chancellor won't stop until the UK is back where it was c1900 - cars for himself and a few friends, everyone else a pedestrian.
The usual "4*4 and sports car" headlines. I expect it's all vehicles falling into a certain band and it'll probably also include vehicles outside those usual simplistic headline "4*4 gas guzzlers" idiotic / irritating terminology.
Who believes for one moment that it really is a "green" agenda and not really an excuse to raise tax? UK Co2 output - 2%. UK vehicles a fraction of that. Higher-consumption vehicles a fraction of that. It's tiny and complete bullsh1t in terms of reducing emissions, even ignoring the fact that most higher consumption vehicles are likely to have a better "whole life" environmental footprint. One day this "green thing" will be seen by everyone for the bullsh1t that it really is.
Who believes for one moment that it really is a "green" agenda and not really an excuse to raise tax? UK Co2 output - 2%. UK vehicles a fraction of that. Higher-consumption vehicles a fraction of that. It's tiny and complete bullsh1t in terms of reducing emissions, even ignoring the fact that most higher consumption vehicles are likely to have a better "whole life" environmental footprint. One day this "green thing" will be seen by everyone for the bullsh1t that it really is.
According to the Times it will only affect cars in Band G which were purchased new since last April and it will go up to £400 over 2 years.
I didn't realise that Band G only applied to cars built since last April, so that means my 2 litre Alfa (213g I think) is still in the highest category for a 2001 car. Which is pretty stupid.
One problem with this is of course that it will incentivise people to run older and even more polluting cars - I have already worked out that the TVR Chimaera I should be running by this autumn will cost me £20 less to tax than the Alfa.
I always wondered why there couldn't be a proper sliding scale, especially as a difference of 1g carbon could conceivably in the future make a difference of £100 or £200. Why not charge something like £1 per gram of carbon? That sounds fairer, although as your carbon emissions depend on how far you drive, it would surely be fairer to raise the tax through petrol duty and make VED just the administrative costs of making sure vehicles are identified and registered.
I didn't realise that Band G only applied to cars built since last April, so that means my 2 litre Alfa (213g I think) is still in the highest category for a 2001 car. Which is pretty stupid.
One problem with this is of course that it will incentivise people to run older and even more polluting cars - I have already worked out that the TVR Chimaera I should be running by this autumn will cost me £20 less to tax than the Alfa.
I always wondered why there couldn't be a proper sliding scale, especially as a difference of 1g carbon could conceivably in the future make a difference of £100 or £200. Why not charge something like £1 per gram of carbon? That sounds fairer, although as your carbon emissions depend on how far you drive, it would surely be fairer to raise the tax through petrol duty and make VED just the administrative costs of making sure vehicles are identified and registered.
With Cameron going for the popular vote and getting hard on combating global warming due to human factors it looks like the UK as a whole all believe that it's us destroying the planet, we're all doomed. At least he's showing that he believes it with his proposals whether you believe it or not. Brown on the other hand is proposing yet another affordable tax increase that essentially has nothing to do with pollution. The only answer as usual is to combat high polluters by increasing tax, hmmm that shows conviction. Perhaps he has forgotten that people already pay far more than his proposed increase every year when paying the high fuel duty. Duty on fuel has had very little effect on reducing journeys and there seem to be more and more 4*4s and high powered cars on our roads(some of which manufacturers will argue are low polluters anyway). If Brown/Bliar want to reduce the amount of 4*4 journeys then they only need to ban them from our roads.
So in summary, the blokes' a cock.
So in summary, the blokes' a cock.
I certainly don't want to crush old cars. Assuming people should pay for the pollution costs they impose on others, (a fair proposition, I think) and that CO2 emissions should be the only or main measure of this (far more questionable) then what is needed is for a fair approach to discourage carbon use across the board. The main emitters of CO2 are not cars or air travel, but homes and businesses. But the Chancellor won't dare tax our gas & electricity because of the political fallout - despite the fact that there's probably much more room to cut emissions there than in motoring, and certainly flying. But there then needs to be something across the board that allows consumers to make appropriate decisions - for example, is a punnet of strawberries grown in a hothouse in the UK more or less polluting than a punnet of strawberries grown in Kenya and flown in? The problem is this idiotic piecemeal approach, and failing to ensure that either the proceeds of carbon-related taxes are used to reduce carbon elsewhere, or that carbon taxes are overall revenue neutral, so their only use is to proportionately charge people for the pollution they cause, not to raise revenue.
saxmund said:
I certainly don't want to crush old cars. Assuming people should pay for the pollution costs they impose on others, (a fair proposition, I think) and that CO2 emissions should be the only or main measure of this (far more questionable) then what is needed is for a fair approach to discourage carbon use across the board. The main emitters of CO2 are not cars or air travel, but homes and businesses. But the Chancellor won't dare tax our gas & electricity because of the political fallout - despite the fact that there's probably much more room to cut emissions there than in motoring, and certainly flying. But there then needs to be something across the board that allows consumers to make appropriate decisions - for example, is a punnet of strawberries grown in a hothouse in the UK more or less polluting than a punnet of strawberries grown in Kenya and flown in? The problem is this idiotic piecemeal approach, and failing to ensure that either the proceeds of carbon-related taxes are used to reduce carbon elsewhere, or that carbon taxes are overall revenue neutral, so their only use is to proportionately charge people for the pollution they cause, not to raise revenue.
Utilities VAT was 17.5% but that nice Mr Brown cut it to 8% in his first budget in 1997. So he's basically made our CO2 emissions worse, assuming the price has anything to do with it.
When people do finally wake up to the fact that global warming is not human-induced, will there be a huge backlash against the so-called green taxes that have been imposed to save us from ourselves? Will we see simple quiet resignation, a little demonstration here and there, or lynchings of ex-chancellors? It will be interesting to find out!
I do despair of this "Mirrot Mirror on the Wall .. Who ist GREENIEST of us all" political agenda. 
Gordon take note .. we all know what happened to the wicked Queen. She did not "live happily ever after in Number 10"
Raise taxes und continue to hammer drivers und I really fear you get a shiny red apple where sun does not shine some time in near future.. as in "outa office und constituency"
Gordon take note .. we all know what happened to the wicked Queen. She did not "live happily ever after in Number 10"
Raise taxes und continue to hammer drivers und I really fear you get a shiny red apple where sun does not shine some time in near future.. as in "outa office und constituency"
Anyone else had the thought that this might be the usual Robber Brown tactic of "leaking" a figure that sounds horrendous (eg: top rate tax up to £420 from £210) so that when he actually announces that the top rate will be "only" £315 we all go away thinking "Wow, that wasn't so bad after all"; when in fact we've all been stitched up by 50%???? 
Fat Richie said:
Anyone else had the thought that this might be the usual Robber Brown tactic of "leaking" a figure that sounds horrendous (eg: top rate tax up to £420 from £210) so that when he actually announces that the top rate will be "only" £315 we all go away thinking "Wow, that wasn't so bad after all"; when in fact we've all been stitched up by 50%????
Well known political tactics.
1/ Tell the public anything unpopular is going to introduced just far enough into the future for them not to react too violently now and by the time you actually introduce that measure the public will have resigned themselves to it.
2/ If you're raising taxes 'leak' a bigger increase than you intend so the public are grateful when it's less.
3/ When budgeting for special projects announce the cost to be a figure the public will just about accept because once you have the go ahead for it you can always come up with an increased figure and justify it on the grounds of money already invested.
BB
Criteria for selection of political candidate
1. Must be out for number one - him/heself
2. Must be able to evade answers by telling the "truth" as he "knows it but not necessarily as the rest of us know it"
3. Must be able to misinterpret whatever he ist told so as to initiate some means of further terrorising the public at large...
4. Most important.. he must have some skeleton in cupboard und a penchant for some gay und jolly escapade .. to make maximum headlines in the Waily und StUN und thus keep a high profile to ensure name in papers Ist a sure vote winner
5. Must be able to swallow muesli und lentils in big lumps .. to maximimise amount of hot farty CO2 into the air und this will also boost his taxation cred in the eyes of his party und ensure the plebs out there pay for his jollies und index linked und based on last whopping pay cheque until death .. whilst duping them into thinking this cash will fund half decent und punctual buses, trains und trams which are clean inside as well as outside.. but never happens as raisins und crunchy dried bananas are always in tomorrow's muesli
1. Must be out for number one - him/heself
2. Must be able to evade answers by telling the "truth" as he "knows it but not necessarily as the rest of us know it"
3. Must be able to misinterpret whatever he ist told so as to initiate some means of further terrorising the public at large...
4. Most important.. he must have some skeleton in cupboard und a penchant for some gay und jolly escapade .. to make maximum headlines in the Waily und StUN und thus keep a high profile to ensure name in papers
Ist a sure vote winner 5. Must be able to swallow muesli und lentils in big lumps .. to maximimise amount of hot farty CO2 into the air und this will also boost his taxation cred in the eyes of his party und ensure the plebs out there pay for his jollies und index linked und based on last whopping pay cheque until death .. whilst duping them into thinking this cash will fund half decent und punctual buses, trains und trams which are clean inside as well as outside..
but never happens as raisins und crunchy dried bananas are always in tomorrow's muesli Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff