Road fund licence or annual tax

[derek vivian]

The tax for my V90 (1997) is £341 per year. I find this incredible for a car that does less than 5,000 miles per year! Should it be that high or is it because as a retired person I pay monthly?

[MWCheshire]

The rate of vehicle tax for cars and light goods veicles registered before 1 March 2001 is purely based on engine size rather than emissions criteria etc, which is what newer vehicles are assessed on. My 940 Estate is the same price as yours.

You can see the rates on the GOV.UK website at this link...

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-...e-1-march-2001

Your car is £341.25 in total if you pay in monthly instalments of £325 if you pay in one go.

[Dippydog]

It is altogether an unfair tax.My V70 is the same rate as yours then you have a higher rate for slightly newer cars then for even newer cars it can be nearly £700 per year,yet some cars have a £0 rate and some £10 and I'm not talking of EVs here.

[lynns hubby]

It wont be long before EVs are taxed to the hilt. The government are just waiting for the tide to turn with a huge uptake of EVs and they will pounce. Got to get the money from somewhere, or is this just me being cynical ?????

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by lynns hubby

It wont be long before EVs are taxed to the hilt. The government are just waiting for the tide to turn with a huge uptake of EVs and they will pounce. Got to get the money from somewhere, or is this just me being cynical ?????

You're not wrong there! They will be taxed soon (but not soon enough!) and they are already pushing our insurance premiums up as they can't guarantee the batteries after a prang. As such, BEVs are being written off for a gatepost scrape or similar and the insurers also have to get the money from somewhere.

Heard something on TV the other day that claimed BEVs are worse on CO/CO2 over their lifetime than ICE cars are, apparently because of their carbon footprint from manufacture and recycling etc.

In other words, just a scam overall to get more money out of the motorist in general.

[baggy798]

You win some, you lose some. I don't pay some other taxes, and have never paid the tv licence - a £2000 saving so far.

Be thankful it's not a 2023 model. With that engine's emissions it's £2220 for the first year, then for some reason drops to £180 after that...? Is that right? You could have a performance car and it's only £180 tax?

https://www.evanshalshaw.com/news/uk...ncrease-april/

[Forrest]

Yep, I paid £325 to tax the 940 last month. I now keep two of my fleet taxed all year round as daily drivers and the other two I only tax in the summer.

The only tip I can offer is always to buy the full 12 months tax in one payment then claim a refund for the whole months unused by declaring the car SORN if you don’t use it in the winter. If you only buy six months you pay a 10% surcharge which is not refundable even if you declare the car SORN before the six months is up. If you want the car on the road for exactly six months buy twelve and put your SORN in at the end of the sixth month. Bizarrely, that is cheaper even though it must cost them more to process.

The whole system is of course a nonsense, like anything to do with HM Government. There is no technical reason why it shouldn’t be possible to tax a car on a daily basis, get an exact number of days refund if you take it off road, and tax it from any day of the month rather than only the first. It does, of course, suit our scam artist politicians to keep a 19th century system creaking into the Digital Age because they can take more money off us that way for providing zero additional service.

[Laird Scooby]

Just use some of the excessive fuel duty we pay to replace VED then the people that use their cars most would pay more and vice versa. That would be a lot fairer and considering it no longer goes to the upkeep and building of roads (hence the original Road Fund Licence name) and hasn't for about 50 or more years, it should be more proportional to how much the cars get used.

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by Forrest

The only tip I can offer is always to buy the full 12 months tax in one payment then claim a refund for the whole months unused by declaring the car SORN if you don’t use it in the winter. If you only buy six months you pay a 10% surcharge which is not refundable even if you declare the car SORN before the six months is up. If you want the car on the road for exactly six months buy twelve and put your SORN in at the end of the sixth month. Bizarrely, that is cheaper even though it must cost them more to process.

I do this too.

I own 8 cars, 4 of which are not yet tax exempt (roll on 2030 when the last 3 will become tax exempt if the system continues as per today!).

Quite often I'll pay 12 months tax, and then request a refund at the end of the first month and then tax another car instead.

It's a faff... but for someone like me who drives (on average) once a week, I can't justify keeping them all taxed!

[Rversteeg]

What you pay in the UK per year, we pay per 3 months in The Netherlands. Our yearly road tax is GBP800 for petrol and GBP1200 if converted to LPG.
Petrol prices have gone up to around 1.85/ltr and 65p/ltr for LPG.