CO2 based tax for pre 08 cars ?

L1011

gpf101 wrote: »

Am no I didn't. I drive a 1.6 which is costing me 490 a year tax. If it was co2 based it'd cost me 1000 euro a year. CO2 is down as 195...

"larger, higher CO2 petrol cars", then. You were still miles off when you blanket marked petrol cars as going up.

my problem with is that its a two tier taxation system which favours those with enough money to buy a new car!!!!
Why should I be paying more for a car that emits the same or less Co2 as someone who can afford to buy a brand new even higher emitting Co2 car and they pay less annual road tax?

josip

peasant wrote: »

The governement have realised that they will have a lot less VRT and motor tax in their koffers at exactly the wrong time (the economic downturn that nobody saw coming, apparently :rolleyes:)

There will be NO further tax reductions in motoring for anyone ...I'd be willing to take bets on that.

If the minister applies the same approach for pre-08 cars as he does for new cars it'll be at worst revenue neutral. As pointed out already, high CO2 owners won't like it. But these people will place an additional cost on the country in the form of Kyoto penalties so it would probably save the country money in the medium to long term

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

my problem with is that its a two tier taxation system which favours those with enough money to buy a new car!!!!
Why should I be paying more for a car that emits the same or less Co2 as someone who can afford to buy a brand new even higher emitting Co2 car and they pay less annual road tax?

Precisely. I can afford a new car, I just don't see the *need* to - my car has done 41000 miles without any serious maintainence, is still a model thats sold right now in the same style, and probably has another 60000 miles on it. If I was replacing it I'd get the faster version of the same - which would STILL have less road tax. This system is basically punishing me for not inflicting massive damage on the environment by buying a new car (steel, plastics, etc + shipping it from Poland to here).

Nonoperational

MYOB wrote: »

"larger, higher CO2 petrol cars", then. You were still miles off when you blanket marked petrol cars as going up.

Even if its just one car goes up, for example mine going from 430 to 1000 euro its ridiculously unfair to peanilise people retrospectively. Its fair enough now as you have a clear choice when you go to buy your car. Buy a performance car with high CO2 and you get punished with higher tax. You can't have a system where the government say - well look you bought this car 3 years ago. Unlucky for you your 1.6 car has a high CO2 please pay 1000 euro a year tax, while the man with the Beemer 520D gets a tax cut for no other reason than being lucky.

The reason you're paying more road tax is because there was a new law passed after you got your car. The only wasy to implement the new law is to have a cut off point. You might not like it but there has to be a cut off point for its introduction. You knew the tax rate for your car before you bought it and you were happy to pay it.

L1011

gpf101 wrote: »

Even if its just one car goes up, for example mine going from 430 to 1000 euro its ridiculously unfair to peanilise people retrospectively. Its fair enough now as you have a clear choice when you go to buy your car. Buy a performance car with high CO2 and you get punished with higher tax. You can't have a system where the government say - well look you bought this car 3 years ago. Unlucky for you your 1.6 car has a high CO2 please pay 1000 euro a year tax, while the man with the Beemer 520D gets a tax cut for no other reason than being lucky.

The reason you're paying more road tax is because there was a new law passed after you got your car. The only wasy to implement the new law is to have a cut off point. You might not like it but there has to be a cut off point for its introduction. You knew the tax rate for your car before you bought it and you were happy to pay it.

Taxes can rise, and we're looking at massive Kyoto fines if we don't get CO2 emissions down. If a car is still sold in the same spec as exists on the road, the existing cars should be transferred to the new tax system. No matter what way you try to spin this, there are large amounts of people paying more tax on a car they already own than a new owner of the same vehicle would pay - and this is in no way fair.

And how are we going to encourage people out of older, low efficiency / high carbon vehicles if their tax rate stays the same? Erm, we're not, thats how.

Del2005

peasant wrote: »

That, I'm afraid, is probably wishful thinking on your part.

The governement have realised that they will have a lot less VRT and motor tax in their koffers at exactly the wrong time (the economic downturn that nobody saw coming, apparently :rolleyes:)

Your quote from Eddie K (whoever he is) is governement speak for " We made a balls of it ...we're loosing money ...help ...we need to claw it back again"

There will be NO further tax reductions in motoring for anyone ...I'd be willing to take bets on that.

And they will raise them all when they do the books and find out they lost a load of money

MYOB wrote: »

Taxes can rise, and we're looking at massive Kyoto fines if we don't get CO2 emissions down. If a car is still sold in the same spec as exists on the road, the existing cars should be transferred to the new tax system. No matter what way you try to spin this, there are large amounts of people paying more tax on a car they already own than a new owner of the same vehicle would pay - and this is in no way fair.

The CO2 emissons from ALL road transport is ~2% there are a lot of other places they could go to reduce our Kyoto fines. Why not ban cattle as they produce loads of methane and thats way worst the CO2, so kill a cow and you can drive want you want:D

And how are we going to encourage people out of older, low efficiency / high carbon vehicles if their tax rate stays the same? Erm, we're not, thats how.

Because it's all bull. The cleanest car is one already made and driven till death. Replacing a car that has passed it's NCT because it produces a tiny bit more CO2 when driven is worst for the enviroment becasue the new car consumes huge amounts of energy in construction and transport. All the goveremnt is doing is moving our CO2 to another part of the planet which isn't very good for the enviroment

L1011

Its no worse than replacing a car because suddenly its road tax is 4x* higher than a brand new one of the exact same kind would be.

*Fiat Bravo 1.6d, there may be other cars with higher differences.

Currently the state is rewarding those who lucked out on buying their polluting cars in the past and punishing those who already owned cleaner vehicles.

peasant

MYOB wrote: »

Currently the state is rewarding those who lucked out on buying their polluting cars in the past and punishing those who already owned cleaner vehicles.

Except for a handful of truly environementaly conscious people I would claim that nobody bought their pre 08 car with any regard whatsoever to CO2 emissions ...it simply wasn't a topic.

The governement is neither rewarding nor punishing anyone ...it simply changed the taxation system for newly registered cars

EDIT: and the reason why they did that has (at least that's my suspiscion) absolutely nothing to do with Kyoto or the environment ...but with the fact that the EU was about to come down on them like a ton of bricks over VRT. Now that VRT wears the multicoloured CO2 dreamcoat, it's alright again ...except that they got their calculations wrong and are loosing money hand over fist

(yes, I know ...I'm a cynical bastard)

Nonoperational

Its a fair point to discuss and I'd possibly be a bit annoyed if I had a low CO2 pre 08 car. But as peasant said, nobody gave a second thought about co2 until this year and the taxation reflects this. This new system will do well to last anyway as was discussed. People buying a 2.2L diesel paying the same tax as a 1L runabout is going to cost them a packet!

You'll have a hard job convincing me on the merits of backdating the taxation system MYOB!

peasant

peasant wrote: »

Except for a handful of truly environementaly conscious people I would claim that nobody bought their pre 08 car with any regard whatsoever to CO2 emissions ...it simply wasn't a topic.

The governement is neither rewarding nor punishing anyone ...it simply changed the taxation system for newly registered cars

EDIT: and the reason why they did that has (at least that's my suspiscion) absolutely nothing to do with Kyoto or the environment ...but with the fact that the EU was about to come down on them like a ton of bricks over VRT. Now that VRT wears the multicoloured CO2 dreamcoat, it's alright again ...except that they got their calculations wrong and are loosing money hand over fist

(yes, I know ...I'm a cynical bastard)

yep and now we have a two tier tax system. I really dont see why i have to pay more when some other guy with more emissions pays less.
I also dont think older petrols should have taxes raised were they to bring this into effect (back date it) as the older cars mean less co2 emissions from construction.

Nonoperational

Besides CO2, are Diesels better for the enviroment than petrols? I always saw them as dirty smokey things although I'm sure the new ones with DPFs and the like are nothing like the stereotype in my head!

L1011

gpf101 wrote: »

Besides CO2, are Diesels better for the enviroment than petrols? I always saw them as dirty smokey things although I'm sure the new ones with DPFs and the like are nothing like the stereotype in my head!

Probably not. Be prepared for a multi-page lecture on heavy particulates, NOx, direct injection vs. indirect injection petrol engines, etc, etc incoming rapidly from the usual suspects though

E92

gpf101 wrote: »

Besides CO2, are Diesels better for the enviroment than petrols? I always saw them as dirty smokey things although I'm sure the new ones with DPFs and the like are nothing like the stereotype in my head!

The stereotype is correct in so far as while diesels are infinitely cleaner than those even 10 years ago, petrol engines have also come on leaps and bounds too.

Thus diesel is still nowhere near as clean burning as petrol.

A Merc S320 CDI for example pollutes 11.6 times more NOx than an Audi A8 2.8, and these are cars that only came out within the last 3 years. They both fulfil the current Euro 4 emissions standards.

By the way, the Merc does have a DPF, like most diesels do(thanks be to God), and the A8 is a direct injection petrol, which in spite of being twice as good as an indirect injection petrol FIAT 500 1.2 for NOx is somehow worse for us than an old fashioned petrol.

Anyway, there have been LOADS of debates about this whole thing, so that's me finished debating the issue on this thread.

The_Conductor

MYOB wrote: »

Precisely. I can afford a new car, I just don't see the *need* to - my car has done 41000 miles without any serious maintainence, is still a model thats sold right now in the same style, and probably has another 60000 miles on it. If I was replacing it I'd get the faster version of the same - which would STILL have less road tax. This system is basically punishing me for not inflicting massive damage on the environment by buying a new car (steel, plastics, etc + shipping it from Poland to here).

Mini Cooper 1.6 Turbo Diesel with 118grms CO2/km @ EUR100 roadtax per annum. It certainly incentivised BMW to get their act together. All I have to do now is try to figure out where to get the cash from. The wife has fallen in love with it........

You are right of course- the system is punishing those who hold onto their older cars.

daveharnett

smccarrick wrote: »

You are right of course- the system is punishing those who hold onto their older cars.

That's one way of looking at it. Owners of >08 low co2 cars are worse off in comparison. Another way of looking at is is from a utilitarian point of view: People who already have cars should keep them until they die, and the new tax system will influence people who are considering buying new cars. It's not about fairness, it's about results.

Mind you, while we're at it, we should reward people who export used high co2 cars and swap them for low co2 cars as well. A reduction is a reduction, right?

Wrong. Screw co2, it's all about collecting the VRT.

josip

gpf101 wrote: »

Unlucky for you your 1.6 car has a high CO2 please pay 1000 euro a year tax, while the man with the Beemer 520D gets a tax cut for no other reason than being lucky.

There are 2 other reasons why pre-08 low CO2 owners would get a tax cut apart from being lucky.

1. They checked the emissions before they purchased and bought on that altruistic basis.

2. They saw that the UK had introduced emissions based taxation in 2001 and bought low-CO2 in anticipation of our government following the UK's lead as they usually do.

From some of the posts one could get the impression that all diesel owners in Ireland drive a BMW 520d and all petrol owners drive a 1.6 family car. It would be fairer to compare petrol and diesel options for the same brand of car. When we bought in 2005 we got a 1.9TDi Octavia instead of a 1.6 Octavia. It was €2K more expensive to buy and annual tax was more expensive. We do 20,000 km/yr so we were never going to recoup our additional expense. We, like many others, bought it coz it has lower CO2.