New Road tax rules, fair or unfair?
 

Just been reading about the new Road tax rules for the UK coming into force in 2017, really can't make my mind up if they're good changes or bad. For those that don't know, since 2001 motorists payed an annual tax based on a cars C02 emissions, before that it was based on engine size. There were various bands, starting at the bottom below 100 grams of C02 per km you had your small city cars, economical diesels and hybrids, with free Road tax. Then at the top you have your gas guzzling sports cars and SUV's paying around £500.

Now from 2017 onwards, every car registered that year or after, will cost £140 a year in tax, unless it's C02 free, electric cars, who will pay nothing. I can see this as fair to some who feel they pay too much tax, but I also see it as a bad thing, and a bit of an unnecessary charge for people driving smaller efficient cars. It may also make cars registered before 2017 hold their value better, as they may still be tax free, whereas the same car registered after will have to pay £140. Another bad thing is that road taxation has encouraged people to choose cars with lower C02, saveing money and cutting carbon emissions too, and it works. According to registration data, 66% of people buying a new car buy one with emissions under 100g per km. Now to most people, this will be irrelevant.

What are your thoughts? Fair or unfair? Another pointless punishment for us easy target motorists?

Everyone should pay if they have rubber tires (lots of petro used to make the tires)

So after learning more about the new Road tax rules coming into effect in April next year, I'm baffled by how and why they thought this was a good idea. One of the main incentives to buy a small effecient car has now been removed, and whilst you'll pay less tax in the first year for such a vehicle, after that, you'll be paying just as much as the guy in the heavy polluting gas guzzling SUV, even if you drive a hybrid that does 700 Mpg!

Only buyers of 100% electric cars will enjoy zero road tax, but even then the government is slashing the grants by 50%, so every electric car price has jumped by £2500! All the smaller efficient cars will be up to £1000 worse off over 6 years, whilst the heavy emitting vehicles will be up to £1000 better off than the current scheme. Sadly, the government live in a bubble in London and don't realise that the other 98% of people can't have an electric car for so many reasons. What a scandal this is, another example of profits first.

Chart below shows the changes, you see how the small low emission vehicles will be hit hardest, no doubt because they encouraged people to buy them for years, and they are loosing billions in tax revenues.

I think it is a shame - though the tax break for eco cars is not really linked with them costing the road network any less. Perhaps we should all pay the road tax, but an equal payment from the government on each anniversary of ownership?

Interesting..... I take it that this road tax is additional to licensing?
I'm interested in total cost of licensing per year?

Here, it can be very different in different states. I used to pay ~$500 per year to license a 4 year old pickup in Calif. While I paid $24 for the same license in South Dakota. South Dakota doesn't have bad roads either. Road crews to clear ice/snow are managed by 'accountants' who don't like overtime. So I sandbag getting out on a bad morning during winter.

There's no license fee as such, when a vehicle is new, there's a registration fee but that only has to be paid once. The road tax is every year, pre 2001 it was based on engine size so bigger cars paid more. Then it was based on C02 emissions, now it's still based on the same emissions, except everyone after the first year pays the same flat rate of £140. And there's an additional luxury car tax for cars over £40,000. I can see a lot of cars being around the £39,999 mark next year ;)

For reducing carbon emissions, the new tax scheme is going backwards, but there is more car emissions than CO2. Smog is becoming more of a problem for European cities. And that was before VW was caught cheating, and the public learned the NEDC emission tests under report how much a car emits out in the real world.

Cleaning up the emissions of a powerplant is way easier than trying to clean them up from a millions of moving vehicles. Most plants are also outside of cities, so their emissions contribute a fraction to urban smog compared to ICE vehicles.

So taxing ICE cars more, and giving BEVs a break makes sense in terms of reducing urban pollution. But battery costs haven't reached the point of being competitive with ICE yet. So cutting the direct subsudies to buy them will negate some of the potential EV sales. Unless the manufacturers are just raising their EV prices to profit off the government rebate to begin with.

You probably saw my post in the other topic, the thing that gets me is that everyone knows Cities are polluted. But realisticly 96% of the UK is actually countryside. The problems occur when too many people have too many houses and too many cars in one place. Just under 50% of pollution comes from road transport in congested places like London, the heavy polluters being trucks, buses and old taxis. Amazingly only 5% of N0X emissions come from diesel cars, despite what the attention grabbing headlines will tell you. They even found out recently that brakes and tyres create 3 times as much particulate matter as a Euro 6 diesel engine, so even if every single car in London was electric, there would still be air quality issues. They are talking about fitting mini vacuum cleaners to brakes now, it's getting a tad ridiculous to say the least. I think it's easier just for people to wear masks and accept that cars are machines and will always emit some kind of chemical regardless. Alot of the N0X emissions actually come from burning natural gas for heating and hot water, again, almost every household has its own independent boiler with its own exhaust etc. They have a huge job cleaning up, they can just keep blaming motorist's for pollution and taxing them as people are getting wise to it.

Thanks.... I find it interesting to read about other countries. Makes this forum more enjoyable to me.
Just for going to work. Another good option in cities is mass transit. Los Angeles set up a good one. I traveled 100 miles by train. Bus pickup at a train depot. Short ride to my destination. All of that set up ahead of time online. Cost me only $27 total. It did take longer. I've seen times it would have been quicker. Also avoid all the hassle of having to drive in the traffic. The train was so nice and quiet. Could easily sleep in it.
Here, it cost me $25 just for the ride from the airport to my home.

Yes I enjoy global interaction too, although some people here are the easily offended type and don't like being compared, on the whole everyone here is jolly and friendly.

The UK has great public transport, it makes financial sense here as it's a small country with a relatively high population. I don't use it myself as I live rural and need a car, but I hear in London an annual season ticket can cost thousands and thousands.