Uk Drivers: thoughts on the new vehicle excise duty bands?

[Stripey]

So, seemingly much less incentive to get an Eco friendly (new) car after 2017!

 

[golfdave]

Knew this was going to happen ages ago as the current bands have been so successful in putting more eco friendly cars on the road that the revenue generated has gone down.........so of course they need to keep the income stream high so will alter the bands as they see fit!

Anyway they are quite a few cars which will still fall into the first three bands!

 

[Stripey]

First 3 bands? There will only be 3 bands. And unless you go for an electric car, you'll pay the same tax for a fairly clean car or a fairly polluting car. Doesn't seem sensible to me, given the EU Co2 targets we have to meet (or face HUGE fines if we don't).

So they may rake in extra tax in the short term, but unless the government makes Co2 savings elsewhere, those savings won't even begin to cover the EU fines.

 

[ColinStone]

If the Govt are calculating CO2 savings based on EU figures for new cars, the they will be under calculating by about 30% anyway.

 

[Bungleaio]

CO2 is nonsense thats why they are moving away from it.

As far as I'm aware they haven't said how it affects existing cars a bit like how the the pre 2000 cars are different.

Overall I think it's a good move.

 

[Stripey]

These new bands only affect new cars from 2017. Existing cars pay the same as they do now.

The only reason there had been a tax on Co2 heavy cars is due to eu targets, so not entirely nonsense!

 

[muppet22]

It's ludicrous basing VED on co2 emissions both because most people know the whole co2 / boil to death scenario is a bit long in the tooth and because for example, if Mrs Jones owns a 2006 Tourareg and drives 3000 miles pa but Mr Jones owns a bluemotion Polo and does 20000 miles, Mr Jones should obviously be paying more as he is causing more damage to the road (in theory).
If VED has to exist this is probably the most sensible way, better still it should be incorporated into fuel thereby both encouraging more fuel efficient cars and motorists paying according to how much they drive.

 

[colham]

It's ludicrous basing VED on co2 emissions both because most people know the whole co2 / boil to death scenario is a bit long in the tooth and because for example, if Mrs Jones owns a 2006 Tourareg and drives 3000 miles pa but Mr Jones owns a bluemotion Polo and does 20000 miles, Mr Jones should obviously be paying more as he is causing more damage to the road (in theory).
If VED has to exist this is probably the most sensible way, better still it should be incorporated into fuel thereby both encouraging more fuel efficient cars and motorists paying according to how much they drive.

^^ this

VED is an outdated tax and should be abolished. The admin savings alone would fix a few potholes!

 

[Hobby55]

I don't agree re the large/small car comparison... If you want to reduce emissions (not just CO2) then VED is the most effective at doing so, as proved since it first changed in 2001. Taxing fuel just benefits those who want to drive large vehicles for short distances (as proved in that comment above). So just benefiting the school run brigade, and if there was ever a section of the driving community who needed to be in smaller vehicles it's them!!

 

[dr_mat]

The only reason the VED bands impact people's choice of car is because it is ALSO used to calculate the tax liability for company car drivers. No-one running a £40k car is going to give half a shite about a £400 a year VED bill.

I agree that people should have incentives to buy more efficient cars, but really the best way of doing that is by taxing fuel more heavily (yes!).

I also agree that we should remove heavily polluting cars from the roads, and that CO2 emissions isn't a measure of pollution at all. There should be a punitive VED scale based on a EU-wide evidence-based metric of "harmful pollutants" for each car. Good on Bojo for penalising those with older diesels and the particulate emissions they produce with the London congestion charge, for example.

 

[Hobby55]

The only reason the VED bands impact people's choice of car is because it is ALSO used to calculate the tax liability for company car drivers. No-one running a £40k car is going to give half a shite about a £400 a year VED bill.

I agree that people should have incentives to buy more efficient cars, but really the best way of doing that is by taxing fuel more heavily (yes!).

Good on Bojo for penalising those with older diesels and the particulate emissions they produce with the London congestion charge, for example.

Neither are those people going to be bothered about a hike in fuel costs...

Taxing fuel more heavily just hits the less well off, unless, that is, you want to return to the early days of motoring where the only people who could afford to drive were the rich?

Boris's "idea" is flawed in so many ways, it's just a sop to some of his voters... But just to give two examples, it "hits" the wrong people as the ones causing most pollution are taxis and HGVs, those are the ones he should go for as they far outnumber the odd old diesel car that makes it's way into the centre of London. Secondly "bad" emissions vary from year to year dependent on what flavour the Gov is and what the latest "research" is, there is no definitive answer to what is actually a "polluting car"... I have followed far too many smoking petrol cars to actually believe that older diesels are the only culprits... A car does not keep it's emissions low on it's own, it needs regular servicing, something many people don't bother with...

Personally I prefer the German method where they give you a sticker (red, amber and green) dependent on how your car does on emissions tests (or if new on the published data), the only issue with it is that it will not suit the driver of older vehicles as they'd be banned from most town centres and motorways...

 

[dr_mat]

The people driving the most are the ones who should be encouraged the most aggressively to switch to low-pollution vehicles. Agree that the congestion charge doesn't take this into account and yes I think the taxi drivers and old buses that drive hundreds of miles a day should absolutely be pushed off the roads as soon as possible.

The definition of "bad emissions" has never changed. The issue twenty years ago was that politics, and some scientists, lost sight of that and decided that CO2 and overall fuel efficiency was a better target to work towards. But let's face it, if scientists didn't learn from past mistakes, they wouldn't be scientists (and we'd all be fooked). Don't dismiss it because it looks like they made a mistake. Latest research does show that particulates and NOx compounds are significant contributors to heart disease, whereas CO2 "only" causes global warming. And the cars producing more particulates and NOx compounds are diesels, even with particulate filters.

Taxing fuel is the one and only fair way to encourage people to drive less. If you aren't well off and have to drive a long way for a job, then yeah that's pretty tough, but then it becomes an even bigger incentive to use a very efficient car.

And yeah the rich don't care about anything at all. They won't learn until the revolution comes..

 

[Hobby55]

But the current system has encouraged people to move into more efficient vehicles, that's the reason they are having to change it, it was too successful! I doubt you'll ever see the fuel duty being raised in the way you want it (thank goodness) as it would be an immediate vote-loser for everyone except the Greens...

As regards emissions, over the years the "bad" part of the emissions has gone from one thing to another, in your list you forgot lead, and the current lot seemed to have missed out many other harmful substances in their pursuit of NOx... It's just what is "fad of the month", there's no consistency at all, if there was I'd have some respect for it... To be fair to them the regulations the EU have brought in have reduced the emissions considerably over the years but Boris's little effort is a typical example of someone after votes rather than for any genuine wish to reduce pollutants in the centre of London.

 

[s7wag]

I've always thought that the only way to effectively ensure that VED/RFL (to fund our road repairs) is collected and fair is to gather through fuel TAX. That way, no-one escapes paying even those trying to run a car without tax/MOT/insurance... yes they still need capturing, fining, locking up and their car's crushed BUT they too can't avoid 'using' fuel. It remains a fair system, for those with a fuel efficient car, those running a 'gas-guzzler' and totally applicable to those doing minimal mileage versus company car/commercial lorries putting on 10s of thousand miles per year. The less efficient your car is, the more miles you do. the more you pay...fair and simple and no avoidance...

 

[Stripey]

I reckon if VED was scrapped and road tax was added to fuel, it wouldn't be that bad for motorists because we'd be saving a few hundred pounds a year from not paying VED. We tend to object to fuel price rises at the moment because we're still paying VED on top.