Say what you will about Gormley but...

Steve

If they did away with road tax, they'd also do away with the motor tax offices around the country, the millions in postage each year to remind you that you need to renew your piece of coloured paper, all of the people employed to take your money and issue a coloured bit of paper, all of the Garda resources poured into making sure motorists are displaying their coloured paper properly, all of the court time taken up by people who didn't have the correct coloured bit of paper - it goes on.

I don't think they'd have to increase petrol much to break even;)

astraboy

bigkev49 wrote: »

Thats my two cents and I find it also adds to my "green fatigue", I'm bloody sick of hearing about C02 everything, can't open the paper without finding out about some other thing that I won't be able buy or do in the future

I'm tired of it too. We are being told we can't buy patio heaters, we can't do this, can't drive that, without any decent alternatives.

galwaytt

well, it'd mean my 'tax' take would fall p.a. to half it's current level - and I have a 3.0 petrol, so I'm all for it.

But if you think the govt are going to put the climate before it's own coffers, you're mistaken.....as someone else mentioned, Revenue dictates that the changes must be revenue neutral - because of that you will never see a tax system that promotes a fall in exchequer revenue..........not only that. Any tax system arrived at now, is only at the start of the ladder.

They will always, always, go up. I mean, give the huge increases in world oil prices, and therefore the tax take the govt have from that - tax being a % of the price - the exchequer should be awash with cash, and only too happy to offset some of that (huge) gain against C02. But they won't....

craichoe

How do you work that out? Or is that based purely on the fact that petrol is cheaper here?

Petrol, Standard tax, Road tax and Registration tax are more.

Is there a VRT equivalent in Holland? What are the road tax rates?

Yes there is a VRT equivolent, it works out at about 30% open market value.

You can checkout your road tax here and compare:
http://www.belastingdienst.nl/reken/motorrijtuigenbelasting/

Where it says:
Voor welk soort voertuig wilt u een berekening maken

Choose: Personenauto (Personal Car)
Second option: choose Zuid Holland
Third option : Benzine for Petrol, Diesel for Diesel etc.
Fourth option, stick in the vehicle weight.

craichoe

eoin_s wrote: »

Look at my earlier post - I got 31 cents, just for the government to break even on a 1.6 doing 40mpg and 12000 miles a year (instead of charging €430 or so road tax). That consumption could well be on the low side, so 50 cents isn't unreasonable.

If you took an average of 40 cents per litre extra instead of road tax, I wonder how many people it would actually benefit.

Burn more, you pay more, its a simple, fair system.

Beta Ray Bill

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Everybody is talking about lower C02 emissions. I would say that among all the posters here, only a TINY minority would have ever thought of the CO2 for their cars, and now EVERYBODY is. I find myself looking for the figure as readily as I would the 0-60 time. So I think hats off to them, it hasn’t been seamless, it won’t be easy, and being Irish everybody will complain, but at least now its on the agenda, and if you make a smart, low CO2 choice then you are going to save money.

So despite all the endless whinging, I think that most people will agree its a change for the better.

This change is far from "for the better".

It means owning a nice car in Ireland is now only for those earning plus 50k+.
It means a person who drives 20000 miles a in an efficent car pays far less tax than one who you drives a non efficent car for 6000 miles, even though they would put out less C02 due to the shorter distance travelled.
It means alot of people who bought big car last year are going to see a major hike in tax. those who bought efficient cars will only save a couple for hundred quid.
It means the lower tax bracket for small cars is going to increase the ammount of traffic on the road.
It means people trying to sell big cars are now in real trouble and stand to lose a fortune due to the fact that the tax is going to be so high on them

In my own view its a disgrace. the tax along with standard 3rd party insurance should be included in the price of fuel. the more you burn the more you pay. very simple and very fair.

A friend of mine has a weekend sport car he drive for a couple of hours on sat and sun and he now has to sell that because of this stupid UNFAIR tax. its an outrage. Although I've had a great idea to get around it!

unkel

JHMEG wrote: »

If VRT was scrapped and the tax put on fuel to compensate, the cost of a litre of fuel would increase by 50c

Who said anything about scrapping VRT? We're talking motor tax here. The latest figure I've seen is it generates about 750 million. Taking your implied figure for fuel sold, that means that fuel would go up by about €0.25 putting us somewhere around average in the EU for petrol

eoin_s wrote: »

Actually - on the tax the fuel idea:

These figures are completely taken out of the air, but I'm trying to guess what might be considered an average car - 1598cc / 40MPG / 12000 miles per year.

That's an annual consumption of 300 gallons or 1362 litres. If the car is already registered, the road tax will be €428. If that was scrapped, would that mean the government would have to add 31 cents per litre or so to recoup that cost - or do I have my figures completely arseways?

The calculation is right. But only for that individual car. At the moment many vehicles pay very little road tax. They will heavily subsidise privately owned cars like the one in your example

Based on an increase of 25 cents he would save himself 6 cents per litre. A saving of less than €100 per year. Not much, but he is an average polluter (12k miles)

Clean people (who either drive little or drive efficient cars or both) save lots. Polluting people who either drive a lot or have dirty engines or both pay the penalty. The polluter pays!

Eoin

craichoe wrote: »

Burn more, you pay more, its a simple, fair system.

Yes, I get the concept - I'm trying to put numbers around it to see how it affects various road users. If my calculation is correct as Unkel says, then it would be interesting to see that across the board - e.g. the 1 litre car doing big mileage, and the bigger engine car (for example, a V8 735 for sale that I would love to buy) doing less mileage.

craichoe

eoin_s wrote: »

Yes, I get the concept - I'm trying to put numbers around it to see how it affects various road users. If my calculation is correct as Unkel says, then it would be interesting to see that across the board - e.g. the 1 litre car doing big mileage, and the bigger engine car (for example, a V8 735 for sale that I would love to buy) doing less mileage.

The petrol would be the same price per litre whether you have a 1L fiesta or a 3.6 Litre Jag.

conneem-TT

stevec wrote: »

Nobody can disagree that the topic is out there, they've achieved that.

What disturbs me about the whole thing is that diesel engines, while they are amongst the lowest for CO2 figures, spew out a whole cocktail of NOx and pp emissions which are known to cause cancer and respiratory problems.
People are being misled as to how "environmentally (un)friendly" diesels actually are.

I was thinking the other day about the effects of diesel and petrol fumes for that matter. Say if your stuck on the M50 for half an hour, how much of the fumes from the car in front would get into yours. If there a filter in the ventilation system or would get a good few mouth fulls over the half hour.

And with respect to polution effects from cars, lets put things into perspective.

Think of how many people went to say NewYork for shopping before Christmas. The polution of each persons air travel alone contributed approximately the same as driving an average car 10,000km :rolleyes:

Now I'm not against environmental issues, I drive half the time and bus it the other because of traffic as I think it's a waste of time and fuel to drive.
And I do like to see new efficent technologies coming out.

galwaytt

stevec wrote: »

If they did away with road tax, they'd also do away with the motor tax offices around the country,

No they wouldn't -did the tax offices 'disappear' in the 70's, when FF abolished car tax? I swear half the people in there are the same people from back then ! :eek:

Eoin

craichoe wrote: »

The petrol would be the same price per litre whether you have a 1L fiesta or a 3.6 Litre Jag.

Yes, I get that - as I said, I'm interested to know what the net effect would be across the board to people who drive differing engine sizes and distances. e.g. will it even out more or less / will there be a certain demographic that gets hit very hard and so on (obviously people doing big mileage in big engine petrol cars will get hit) and so on.

Riskymove

astraboy wrote: »

I'm tired of it too. We are being told we can't buy patio heaters, we can't do this, can't drive that, without any decent alternatives.

to be fair...you are not being told that you cannot drive...you are free to buy any car you want...

the only difference between the current system and new system is that the tax bands are based on emmissions instead of engine size...

Riskymove

conneem-TT wrote: »

Think of how many people went to say NewYork for shopping before Christmas. The polution of each persons air travel alone contributed approximately the same as driving an average car 10,000km :rolleyes:

actually the air travel is a fraction of road travel...

500 people going to new york is very small emmissions compared to each of those 500 people individually driving 10,000km

cantdecide

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Everybody is talking about lower C02 emissions. I would say that among all the posters here, only a TINY minority would have ever thought of the CO2 for their cars, and now EVERYBODY is. I find myself looking for the figure as readily as I would the 0-60 time. So I think hats off to them, it hasn’t been seamless, it won’t be easy, and being Irish everybody will complain, but at least now its on the agenda, and if you make a smart, low CO2 choice then you are going to save money.

So despite all the endless whinging, I think that most people will agree its a change for the better.

It will matter not at the end of the day. USAGE is the #1 reason for excessive pollution. Until people's usage can change, there will be no meaningful changes in CO2 output IMO.

Riskymove

grahambo wrote: »

This change is far from "for the better".

It means owning a nice car in Ireland is now only for those earning plus 50k+.

A friend of mine has a weekend sport car he drive for a couple of hours on sat and sun and he now has to sell that because of this stupid UNFAIR tax. its an outrage. Although I've had a great idea to get around it!

actually a lot of "nice cars" will be cheaper...BMW prime example

if your friend has an existing car its taxed on the current system and so went up by 9-11% this year...he laready had to tax it so it now costs a few hundred euro extra per year...why does he suddenly need to sell it

conneem-TT

Riskymove wrote: »

actually the air travel is a fraction of road travel...

500 people going to new york is very small emmissions compared to each of those 500 people individually driving 10,000km

No, 500 people equals 500,000km in an average car.

For air travel a single persons pollution contribution is comparitive to distance travel by car.

So if you travel 10,000km in an airplane it is comparible to you driving 10,000km with respect to CO2 emmisions

unkel

eoin_s wrote: »

I'm trying to put numbers around it to see how it affects various road users. If my calculation is correct as Unkel says, then it would be interesting to see that across the board - e.g. the 1 litre car doing big mileage, and the bigger engine car (for example, a V8 735 for sale that I would love to buy) doing less mileage.

LOL

Examples

Current model Toyoya Yaris 1.0 42MPG doing 40,000 miles per annum. Thats 4,328 liters used. This will costs 4,328 times €0.25 more because of the higher petrol price, so €1082. The old motor tax of €165 is gone. Total extra cost for this polluter: - €165 + €1082 = €917

Previous model BMW 735 21MPG doing 5,000 miles per annum. Saves €1,491 in motor tax but has to pay additional 1082 liters times €0.25 so total savings for this planet saver is a staggering €1,220 :eek:

Steve

conneem-TT wrote: »

Think of how many people went to say NewYork for shopping before Christmas. The polution of each persons air travel alone contributed approximately the same as driving an average car 10,000km :rolleyes:

Where'd you get that figure from?
Long haul jet transport is surprisingly fuel efficient, 100mpg/passenger

Also the round trip if the atlantic froze and you could drive it is 10,244km so your arguement is saying a plane is more efficient anyway;)

Source: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question192.htm

Steve

galwaytt wrote: »

No they wouldn't -did the tax offices 'disappear' in the 70's, when FF abolished car tax? I swear half the people in there are the same people from back then ! :eek:

Wasn't aware they did that - they obviously kept the tax offices cos they knew they'd be needed again:mad:

conneem-TT

stevec wrote: »

Where'd you get that figure from?
Long haul jet transport is surprisingly fuel efficient, 100mpg/passenger

Also the round trip if the atlantic froze and you could drive it is 10,244km so your arguement is saying a plane is more efficient anyway;)

Source: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question192.htm

Various sites on the net, but also remember emissions from aircraft fuel contribute ~2 times more than automobiles to "global warming" per weight.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/02/air_travel_and.php

http://www.campaigncc.org/Howdoesairtravel.doc

Here you can calculate the emissions from any flight you intend to go on:)
http://www.chooseclimate.org/flying/mf.html

JHMEG

unkel wrote: »

Who said anything about scrapping VRT? We're talking motor tax here.

Apologies.

€880 million in 2006 was taken in motor tax. Probably over the €900 last year.

Beta Ray Bill

Riskymove wrote: »

actually a lot of "nice cars" will be cheaper...BMW prime example

if your friend has an existing car its taxed on the current system and so went up by 9-11% this year...he laready had to tax it so it now costs a few hundred euro extra per year...why does he suddenly need to sell it

BMW are ok cars, there common as muck and don't look great apart from the 6 series. And thats something you drive in your mid 40's not 20's. they are also quite expensive when compared with other car manufacturers so my argument still stands

I'm talking about sports cars, cars that are fun to drive. the only thing that appeals to me from BMW is the M series cars and they are all 2000 to tax after july.

My friend drives an rx7. its a great car. he imported and taxed it in sept for a year. tax was like 590 euro its now going to be 2000 euro to tax it come next sept. he cannot afford that and wants to get rid of it before then. so its alot more than a few hundred euro.

JHMEG

grahambo wrote: »

My friend drives an rx7. its a great car. he imported and taxed it in sept for a year. tax was like 590 euro its now going to be 2000 euro to tax it come next sept.

Jeez can ppl not read. His tax will not be €2,000, it will stay on the old system. Only cars after July 1st 2008 will be on the new system.

unkel

JHMEG wrote: »

Probably over the €900 last year.

So €0.30 on top of a litre then. And let's remember we can close the whole government system that is motor tax. Make all staff involved redundant. That would save a lot of money in the long run!

galwaytt

grahambo wrote: »

My friend drives an rx7. its a great car. he imported and taxed it in sept for a year. tax was like 590 euro its now going to be 2000 euro to tax it come next sept. he cannot afford that and wants to get rid of it before then. so its alot more than a few hundred euro.

oh my god. Do people not read the VRT rules, or, the sticky on this forum ??? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

If the guy brought in, vrt'd and taxed the RX7 last year, NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE - HE IS NOT GOING TO PAY THE 2K a year you're talking about.

That only applies to cars imported AFTER JULY 2008. Existing cars are AS-IS, bar the annual few %........

EDIT; JHMEG beat me to it....

JHMEG

unkel wrote: »

And let's remember we can close the whole government system that is motor tax. Make all staff involved redundant.

We can't me anyone redundant, they're all lifers.

Ordnance Survey Ireland outsourced 50% of a particular series of mapping to a 3rd party company. All the people that used to do it are still in OSI, only they have a lot less work to do now.

Steve

conneem-TT wrote: »

Here you can calculate the emissions from any flight you intend to go on:)
http://www.chooseclimate.org/flying/mf.html

I don't want to go OT here but that site is wildly inaccurate.
e.g. B747 DUB-JFK they quoted 60g/RPK and based their emmisions on this.Achieved figures for this journey are more like 40g/RPK.
This might be worthy of discussion in a new thread.

Beta Ray Bill

galwaytt wrote: »

oh my god. Do people not read the VRT rules, or, the sticky on this forum ??? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

If the guy brought in, vrt'd and taxed the RX7 last year, NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE - HE IS NOT GOING TO PAY THE 2K a year you're talking about.

That only applies to cars imported AFTER JULY 2008. Existing cars are AS-IS, bar the annual few %........

EDIT; JHMEG beat me to it....

Oh I didnt know that, and niether does he HAHA!

are you 100% positive and I mean absolutely positive?

what would happen if I was to buy an 04 car after july? what happens then am I on the new or old system?

JHMEG

grahambo wrote: »

Oh I didnt know that, and niether does he HAHA!

are you 100% positive and I mean absolutely positive?

what would happen if I was to buy an 04 car after july? what happens then am I on the new or old system?

Only cars REGISTERED FROM JULY 1st 2008 are affected. Applies to new and 2nd hand imports.