a cap of €790 per year for cars 15 years and older - good idea ?

goochy

it annoys me to see ' youngtimer ' cars with larger engines from late 80s to late 90s being so hard to sell and often being scrapped or exported due largely due to high road tax. Do plp think leaving the road tax rate for cars 15 years and old capped at rate for 2 litre cars(old system) approx €790.00 would be a good idea.

as so many of these cars get scrapped and exported at the moment would it cost gov. much ? its better to get €790 than for the car to be scrapped / exported and someone to maybe buy newer used car with lower tax ??

it would see more of these cars on the road and values would not fall over the earth as they do now - also it would make importing such vehicles from likes of uk viable and gov. could get import duty from those cars

i would like to see an increase in road tax for 2008 on diesel cars - while you cant increase back to old road tax rate - increasing it by maybe 25% would make big diff. to gov. finances and make little diff. to owners of such cars

John Larkin

I think that road tax should be permanently abolished for all road vehicles and replaced with an increase in excise duty (not an increase in VAT which can be reclaimed) on all hydrocarbon fuels regardless of source (whether fossil or plant-sourced). The increase would be about 25 cent per litre to maintain existing road tax revenue. A Mercedes S500 doing 30,000 miles per year would pay about €1680. A pensioner with a Nissan Micra doing 3000 miles per year would pay €84. Salesman driving a 2.0L diesel Passat 80,000 miles per year would pay €2,140. HGV doing 100,000 miles per year would pay €14,000. The typical sub-two litre VinVet vehicle doing 1,000 miles per annum at a typical 30 mpg would pay about €38. Drive less at moderate speeds in a light car with a small engine and pay less; drive high mileage at high speeds in a large heavy car with a big engine and pay more. It's fair and the user has freedom of choice. Tax evasion would be harder. Simple and effective.

WDB123

HGV doing 100,000 miles per year would pay €14,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
would you be happy to pay that extra premium on your day to day items
ie carton milk €3.00 say to pay for that,we live on an island everything is shipped by road YOU will pay the premium if that happened
As it is hauliers are paying €4500 per year per truck (£350 in the north) is that not enough for you,If you want a big car pay the tax if not dont buy it ,dont try fund it on the back of others with a poor system
This Government only goes one way and that aint your way or mine

swarlb

John Larkin wrote: »

I think that road tax should be permanently abolished for all road vehicles and replaced with an increase in excise duty (not an increase in VAT which can be reclaimed) on all hydrocarbon fuels regardless of source (whether fossil or plant-sourced). The increase would be about 25 cent per litre to maintain existing road tax revenue. A Mercedes S500 doing 30,000 miles per year would pay about €1680. A pensioner with a Nissan Micra doing 3000 miles per year would pay €84. Salesman driving a 2.0L diesel Passat 80,000 miles per year would pay €2,140. HGV doing 100,000 miles per year would pay €14,000. The typical sub-two litre VinVet vehicle doing 1,000 miles per annum at a typical 30 mpg would pay about €38. Drive less at moderate speeds in a light car with a small engine and pay less; drive high mileage at high speeds in a large heavy car with a big engine and pay more. It's fair and the user has freedom of choice. Tax evasion would be harder. Simple and effective.

Why assume a pensioner would want to drive a Micra ? HGV owners paying 14k a year !!!

beauf

Why not discount it for commercials.

mondymike

WDB123 wrote: »

HGV doing 100,000 miles per year would pay €14,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
would you be happy to pay that extra premium on your day to day items
ie carton milk €3.00 say to pay for that,we live on an island everything is shipped by road YOU will pay the premium if that happened
As it is hauliers are paying €4500 per year per truck (£350 in the north) is that not enough for you,If you want a big car pay the tax if not dont buy it ,dont try fund it on the back of others with a poor system
This Government only goes one way and that aint your way or mine

Exactly! Are you out of your mind?...or just trolling?

mondymike

I'd say put a flat rate of 300e tax, for 15-25yr olds, that's affordable and will keep some perfectly good cars on the road without offending either end of the range

mister gullible

Putting the road tax on a litre of fuel is an old chestnut that shows a total lack of consideration for those who have to use their car every day just to get to shops chemists, schools etc. because they live miles out of town. The notion is usually pedalled by cycling types from the leafy suburbs.:rolleyes:

carchaeologist

In a nutshell, it will never happen...

beauf

carchaeologist wrote: »

In a nutshell, it will never happen...

It already has.

A typical Irish driver pays about €2,754 a year in fuel and €1,652 of this is tax.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ireland-is-worlds-fourth-most-expensive-for-petrol-30282087.html

WDB123

mondymike wrote: »

Exactly! Are you out of your mind?...or just trolling?

out of my mind why would you think that ?? or have i read it wrong ??

Nekarsulm

every truck fleet owner would relocate North. Overnight. Every one man transport operation would close down. Overnight. How would that help?

Nekarsulm

WDB123, Mondy mike was not referring to you, but to the original poster. They were agreeing with your post.

porsche959

Nekarsulm wrote: »

every truck fleet owner would relocate North. Overnight. Every one man transport operation would close down. Overnight. How would that help?

Can you post some analysis to back this up please? (preferably, avoid the illogical, fact-free ranting of the WDB123 poster above).

porsche959

A few special interests posters brought out of the closet tonight, lol.

Funny to see the hysterical reaction to the "polluter pays" principle, as advocated by John Larkin above, using facts and logic.

Nekarsulm

well Porsche, The reverse happened here about five years ago. white diesel became cheaper in the South, and suddenly we were meeting Northern transport firms trucks now with Southern plates and company addresses in Lough and Monaghan.

Tzar Chasm

My brother works for a medium sized haulage firm, the bulk of their trucks are registered in bulgaria.

as for the original suggestion maybe a sliding scale would be the way to go, 30% reduction in rates every ten years until vintage status.

however this wouldnt work as it would mean that peasants could aspire to owning nice cars, and we cant have that, how would our betters distinguish themselves

Grimreaper666

I think a cheap weekend and holidays tax for big cars would be a great idea but you could only use them from Friday evening 4 p.m. to Sunday night at 12 or Monday on a bank holiday.

DakarVert

Grimreaper666 wrote: »

I think a cheap weekend and holidays tax for big cars would be a great idea but you could only use them from Friday evening 4 p.m. to Sunday night at 12 or Monday on a bank holiday.

Yes this!

I had a 1989 BMW E32 735iL (3.5l straight 6)
€1809 for 12 months tax, What did I eventually have to sell the car for? €500!!
No-one wanted it due to the stupid tax.

The reason I sold it? Because I would never tax it either.

Dades

The government is perfectly happy for 80's + 90's luxobarges to go to the scrapper. It indirectly feeds the need for new cars on the roads and new cars mean VRT (and VAT) for them.

It's all about the government coffers and fairness or nostalgia do not have a seat at the table.

Stella Virgo

goochy wrote: »

it annoys me to see ' youngtimer ' cars with larger engines from late 80s to late 90s being so hard to sell and often being scrapped or exported due largely due to high road tax. Do plp think leaving the road tax rate for cars 15 years and old capped at rate for 2 litre cars(old system) approx €790.00 would be a good idea.

as so many of these cars get scrapped and exported at the moment would it cost gov. much ? its better to get €790 than for the car to be scrapped / exported and someone to maybe buy newer used car with lower tax ??

it would see more of these cars on the road and values would not fall over the earth as they do now - also it would make importing such vehicles from likes of uk viable and gov. could get import duty from those cars

i would like to see an increase in road tax for 2008 on diesel cars - while you cant increase back to old road tax rate - increasing it by maybe 25% would make big diff. to gov. finances and make little diff. to owners of such cars

NO. Wayyyy too high, 300/400 maximum.

mondymike

Nekarsulm wrote: »

WDB123, Mondy mike was not referring to you, but to the original poster. They were agreeing with your post.

Yeah, larkins post. Hauliers would close overnight. Even as is my bosses truck is still registered in the north because its 280 sterling, if he changed it over it'd be nearly 3000e. We are located all over the country so we are OK for now.

Why can't anybody do strong independent research into the Australian model, I'm sure its not unique to them but I am only aware of it from their perspective. How they deal with commercial users etc. Is it tax alone or would tax and third party Insurance be a possibility?

Tzar Chasm

Australia taxes based on the number of cylinders/rotors, commonly 4/6/8, so smaller engines are still cheaper, the CTP is then sorted out with an insurance company, usually at a flat fee, although some exceptions may apply, then it just automatically rolls over into your tax renewal unless you chose to change providers, the car also requires an annual RWC, this used to be issued by garages, but they have clamped down on this in recent years due to what were called phoneworthies.

Tax is still relativley high, for examplean average family car is the 4.0L 6 cyl ford falcon
443 annual registration fee
48 additional road maintenance tax
336 Compulsary third party
150 road worthy certificate
25 plate fee

thats a grand, so the australian system isnt as great as people like to think

plus if its a proper luxobarge with 8-12 cylinders then the price skyrockets again
for a v12 the registration component shoots up to 728

Nekarsulm

DakarVert wrote: »

Yes this!

I had a 1989 BMW E32 735iL (3.5l straight 6)
€1809 for 12 months tax, What did I eventually have to sell the car for? €500!!
No-one wanted it due to the stupid tax.

The reason I sold it? Because I would never tax it either.

Would actually work out cheaper to rent a room in Fermanagh, and tax it up there, rather than pay that sort of coin down here.

John Larkin

porsche959 wrote: »

A few special interests posters brought out of the closet tonight, lol.

Funny to see the hysterical reaction to the "polluter pays" principle, as advocated by John Larkin above, using facts and logic.

I appreciate your thoughtful comment.

I prefer to call it the "consumer pays" principle.

By the way, HGVs cause a huge amount of wear to roads, and they pay a disproportionately small amount of road tax. The EU is examining the UK HGV road tax rate. Private motorists would pay less road tax if HGVs paid their fair share, but the national HGV transport groups know how to lobby politicians, unlike motor clubs which claim to exert political influence but deliver little or nothing.

Nekarsulm

John Larkin wrote: »

I appreciate your thoughtful comment.

I prefer to call it the "consumer pays" principle.

By the way, HGVs cause a huge amount of wear to roads, and they pay a disproportionately small amount of road tax. The EU is examining the UK HGV road tax rate. Private motorists would pay less road tax if HGVs paid their fair share, but the national HGV transport groups know how to lobby politicians, unlike motor clubs which claim to exert political influence but deliver little or nothing.

But if you tax a truck at 15,000 Euro, that's almost 4 months wages for a driver. So companies would move to North or Eastern Europe, or pay their Irish drivers less, or do both, base themselves in Romania and employ Eastern European drivers at 50% of Irish wage.
An artic, loaded or not, will struggle to better 12 miles per gallon, nearer 7 with a load and on bendy roads. What happens to the tax take on 7 miles to the gallon? Its not like Joe Soap tootling along doing 200 miles a week, using 4 gallons of diesel and €14 tax take on fuel. a truck could run 3 to 400 gallons of fuel in a good week, and contribute €1500 tax on diesel alone.

John Larkin

Nekarsulm wrote: »

But if you tax a truck at 15,000 Euro, that's almost 4 months wages for a driver. So companies would move to North or Eastern Europe, or pay their Irish drivers less, or do both, base themselves in Romania and employ Eastern European drivers at 50% of Irish wage.
An artic, loaded or not, will struggle to better 12 miles per gallon, nearer 7 with a load and on bendy roads. What happens to the tax take on 7 miles to the gallon? Its not like Joe Soap tootling along doing 200 miles a week, using 4 gallons of diesel and €14 tax take on fuel. a truck could run 3 to 400 gallons of fuel in a good week, and contribute €1500 tax on diesel alone.

A HGV at 7 to 12 mpg and 300 to 400 gallons indicates a weekly mileage of between 2100 and 4800 --- an average of between 52.5 mph and 120 mph for a forty hour week. As neither of these two hourly average mileage figures is realistic for a forty hour shift I assume then that the truck would be used on a multiple shift basis, say three shifts or 120 hours on the road giving average travelled mileage of between 17.5 and 40 per hour, although 40 mph average still seems high.

Using Nekarsulm's figures a loaded HGV is about twenty or twenty five times heavier than a typical car, and if driven up to 120 hours per week that's 35 tonnes for 120 hours = 4200 tonne.hours per week. The aforementioned Joe Soap doing 200 miles per week probably drives for ten hours in his 1.4 tonne car = 14 tonne.hours per week. The truck's usage of the road is 300 times (4200 divided by 14) that of the car with the truck being charged an annual road tax of €5195, which means Joe Soap should be paying €17.30 annual road tax instead of the typical €400 that he pays. Or maybe the HGVs really should be paying more.

If a HGV uses about 400 gallons per week that's about 20,000 gallons per year, or 90,000 litres. If Nekarsulm's figures for HGVs are accurate then it seems that trucks should be paying about €22,000 a year in road tax if it were fairly levied.

jimgoose

A sensible motor tax cap like that suggested in the OP is a fine idea. Bring it on.

mister gullible wrote: »

Putting the road tax on a litre of fuel is an old chestnut that shows a total lack of consideration for those who have to use their car every day just to get to shops chemists, schools etc. because they live miles out of town. The notion is usually pedalled by cycling types from the leafy suburbs.:rolleyes:

Well on this occassion the notion is being pedalled by a fifteen-year-old Jag driver from the leafy suburbs, who needs a car to get anywhere and who is fed up to the back-teeth with being rode side-saddle to subsidise a load of wasteful idiots with new 142-plate carriers.

Nekarsulm wrote: »

every truck fleet owner would relocate North. Overnight. Every one man transport operation would close down. Overnight. How would that help?

About the same as it helps right now, when taxing an artic in Northern Ireland costs about one fifth of what it costs down here. And this is before you even mention Eddie Stobart. :pac:

macplaxton

mondymike wrote: »

Even as is my bosses truck is still registered in the north because its 280 sterling, if he changed it over it'd be nearly 3000e.

jimgoose wrote: »

when taxing an artic in Northern Ireland costs about one fifth of what it costs down here.

Goods vehicle (12T+) VED in the UK/NI has been reduced to a low rate for a very good reason.

In order to charge non-UK/NI vehicles for wearing out their roads and level the transport playing field, they couldn't just charge non-UK/NI vehicles the new road levy, they had to charge everyone. To make it tax neutral to UK operators, the annual VED was slashed. In about 98% of cases the new system was no more than 50quid dearer to them, in about 2% cases it was more than 50 quid and this was blamed on EU minimum road tax rates to be complied with.

Other EU states have similar vignette / toll systems for goods vehicles.

John Larkin wrote: »

The EU is examining the UK HGV road tax rate.

The only thing I can see the EU commission examining is the UK HGV Levy to ensure compliance with EU rules and there are various HGV road tax rates in the UK too.

Redrocket

This kind of taxed fuel change is aimed at making taxes more fair for private people, and shouldnd kill commercial businesses.

I would expect somehow for commercial (hauliers, taxi, anything non private) related drivers that the fuel would have to have some sort of write off. Discounted somehow when they collect their yearly receipts for fuel and hand them in. Or a card with their VAT number on it they can use at the counter to pay for cheaper fuel. Something

What John Larkin suggests above might not be exactly accurate for each example he makes, and I think is more of an example of how things MIGHT look on paper. He doesnt take into consideration commercial users, and for a law like that to work an allowance would have to be made. I still think its a good example he makes for private users.

kdevitt

Tzar Chasm wrote: »

Australia taxes based on the number of cylinders/rotors, commonly 4/6/8, so smaller engines are still cheaper

Its actually based on the weight of the vehicle, which is pretty sensible imo (at least in NSW anyway)

http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/roads/registration/fees/registration-costs.html