Small cars, reduction in tax in the budget.

In news:44216edc$0$6961$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net, Ian Stirling wrote something quite bizarre, possibly in an effort to confuddle the world. It went like so;

Ooooh, high mileage cars pay less tax?

Cooooool, I know where there's a 400,000 mile Lexus LS400 for sale.

You know what I meant :)

I heard the whole car tax system had been overhauled and that 4x4s are going to be charged about £250 per year and the most efficient types of car with the lowest rates of emmissions are going to be exempt from road tax altogether.

And for the first time in my life - I agree with a politician!

Unfortunately your interpretation of the new tax system is as good as the politicians ! The rate is a sliding scale depends on year type etc. Why o why does everybody have to agree with the latest PC statements ? Improve the world ? OK lets get down to no private transport/ more public transport/ no plastic wrapping that serves no purpose etc etc

AIUI. My car - Nissan Micra, will now cost 40 quid per year to tax, as it's in band B - assuming

correct.

Band A - the 0 tax one seems to be up to 100g/km - about 69MPG. Band B is to 120g, about 57MPG, C to 150g or 46MPG, ...

Oops. Damn. That was a micra diesel. Oh well. Fiver off.

I wonder how much second hand diesel engines are...

There is a massive amount that the government could do if it really wanted to, for instance why not totally abolish VAT on all new super-efficient condensing combi heaters and the cost of their installation.

Give farmers subsidies to grow bio-crops on 'set-aside' land, and drop the fuel duty on bio-fuels by up to two-thirds (on a sliding scale according to the amount of bio additive) also quadruple the price of incandescent light bulbs and use the money as a direct subsidy to bring down the costs of low energy lamps.

That's just a few ideas off the top of my head, and there are probably a hundred similar ones at least that the rest of you could come up with.

It seems to me that if the planet was in such dire danger as we are constantly told it is, then the above (plus a helluva lot more would already be being done) its not difficult therefore to understand why so many people believe that it's all one big con.

VED is an irrelevantly small proportion of motoring costs unless you do a very low annual mileage in a small car. I only do 6,000 miles a year so it's a bit more significant, but a difference of only £40 or so per year between an "average" car and a 4.7 litre behemoth isn't going to worry anyone who needs a mobile penis extension; they're already paying many times more in fuel than that.

Anyway, top whack is now £210 for cars emitting more than 225g CO2/km - which is a lot of them.

My old MX-5 is on the pre-2001 system so it goes up to £175 from £170.

I don't think there's any practical vehicle in the zero-rated band A of under 100g CO2/km. Even a Toyota Prius is higher.

I've just about worked it out. But use of american phrases like "gas mileage" really f*ck me off.

Pretty much me.

40 quid would have been a few weeks fuel. 5 quid - as it looks like being, is taking the piss.

Ok. Numbers.

2004. A B C D E F 374 205185 2625255 2188537 1753238 267302 Change -75 -35 -5 0 0 25 28050 7181475 13126275 -6682550

Total change = 13653250 less VED.

Assuming G, as reported, is the "top 1%", that's 70000 vehicles, at 20 quid a time is an extra 1.4 million. Or 12 million less VED due to these changes.

IMO, insane. Something more like -300 -75 -50 +50 +100 +150 +300, for an overall net increase in VED.

The citroen C1 Diesel is pretty close - 109g CO2/Km.

And the Honda Insight actually hits it. (80g/Km) But. The C1 is about the same size as the insight, and is 10 grand cheaper.

10 grand will move either car well over 150K miles. At which time the insight is completely out of warranty, and is likely to be considerably more expensive to repair.

However. VED is the wrong instrument for this. Unless you get to VED of several thousands per year, it's dwarved by the fuel cost for most people.

If people were logical - then fuel duty would completely fix this. The carbon element has to be visible to the user.

Making the fuel duty dependant on the ratio of your cars MPG to the average fleets MPG (double the average - double the duty) would be closer to the mark. There is no neat solution unfortunately, and it's not going to be popular.

Personally, I've quite often heard "what mileage does it get", rather than "how many miles per gallon".

Flicking through the vehicle listings at the back of the What Car magazine, I cant find any new cars at all that are 100g CO2/km or less!

Apparantly it just the Honda Insight and a diesel smart car, neither of which are sold in this country, could import one I suppose, but at the end of the day VED doesn't make up a huge percentage of motoring costs for most.

Z

Ian Stirling ( snipped-for-privacy@mauve.demon.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Kill them. It's the kindest thing.

Not only are they terminally boring, but they think they're American. No jury would convict you.

Ian Stirling ( snipped-for-privacy@mauve.demon.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Interesting.

I did think it looked as if it might do that. They've not loaded fuel - this time - but...?

In message , Ian Stirling writes

It's debatable whether there's a problem...

Personally, I'm more bothered about the balance of payments issue, and security of supply issues than any possible global warming.

For similar reasons, I'm in favour of nuclear - it may be slightly more expensive, but the money goes to people employed in the UK, not overseas.

Perhaps they should rethink their policy and include the two lowest cars available to BUY IN THE UK ffs...

Yeah - though not quite that strict.

There is the Prius - out in front in band B, but only by a hair, at

104g/Km. At 109-120, there are another 40 vehicles. Everything from the Smart Ka, to the Nissan Micra Diesel.

You are absolutely right - there is at present no car in Band A (source:

What Gordon has done is pull off another political sleight of hand -giving with one hand, taking away with the other. But the giving hand isempty!

However I do have several cars which share the Band A rate of duty ;-)