IS YOUR CAR OVER 25 YEARS OLD AND YOUR STILL PAYING TAX?

In reality, what would happen is that there would be a 'rush' for >25 year old cars, and selling a 23 or 24 year old one will be nigh on impossible. Basically, having any kind of arbitary age cutoff point will create an artificial effect on the market price of cars, which basically distorts things and is just a complete hassle. At least it would be a rolling cutoff, not like the fixed one we have at the moment and that makes a 1973 Beetle rather unloved compared to its almost identical 1972 sister!

Having free tax for >25 year cars is no fairer than having an arbitary tax difference at 1549cc. Have you noticed how initially, there were about 7 emissions tax bands, and now there's loads more? Its all a development in some kind of effort to make the tax fairer, in other words instead of having cutoff points, making the scheme much more gradual.

I think your argument is a little naive, given that the government (they have admitted/made statements already, to the effect that they simply cannot afford to run a rolling 25 year scheme) needs the revenue from tax, unfair as it may seem in your personal circumstances.

Thus, about 2 pages ago I suggested that people look more closely at road pricing, rather than 'blindly' following a link to an online petition, as around 1000000 people did previously.

If anything, this illustrates to MPs that internet petitions are a poor way to actually, properly, find out what people really think and want. A better idea might be to simply suggest to people to write, in their own words, to their local MP, if they feel sufficiently strongly about a tax issue they have.

Luckily I live in The Netherlands so as of this January I don't have to pay road tax anymore. Of course it is nice to save money, but it's not that big of an issue for such a small car. I could imagine that for someone with a big Rolls Royce diesel it would be another matter, but then again, if they can afford the car they can afford the tax.

It seems that governments think that they can solve the traffic jams and save the environment by taxing people who use their cars to get to and from work. That seems hardly fair because most of them do not have any reasonable alternatives.
Personally I think a fuel tax would be the bes solution. The more fuel your car uses, the more you pay.

briand said

Personally I think a fuel tax would be the bes solution. The more fuel your car uses, the more you pay.

Scottish people tend to moan at this though. Not because they're Scottish, but because when you live in a predominantly rural area, doing high mileage and needing to use a car, are a fact of life.

The fairest way to tax transport is to tax use. The current licence system is a tax on ownership and bears not relationship to use. You don't need super hi-tech solutions to do this with cameras everywhere and satellite transmiters in cars. The solution already exists, tax fuel, no new systems or massive investment is required.

However any government that puts up the price of petrol and diesel will be commiting suicide, even if they remove car tax and improve public transport at the same time.

i'm happy with the current car tax rules. they may not be 100% fair but they are there for a reason.

the reason being to try and get as many people out of bigger / uneconomical cars and into smaller / o zone friendly ones.

that is what our road tax is all about.
not about actually maintaining our public highways (although we are told that is where the money is spent)

so am i the only person happy how they are?

whatalotafun said

so am i the only person happy how they are?

Nope  :wink:

Not even read the petition but in my humble opinion why not have free RFL if 25yrs or above???

And here's why . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's 25yrs+ old for a reason  
The people who've had it beforehand have obviously looked after it (or a majority have at least   )
The person who currently owns it is doing all they can to keep it 'legal' to take it on the road.
We are the good folk in society, a vast majority of us are employed, some of us have 'proper' jobs   , we've paid our taxes plus some.
We support the economy ie paint sprayers, mechanics, panel beaters, auto electricians etc
These vehicles will have therefore troubled society the least and paid their dues  :y:
Mine's 20yrs old this July so doesn't really matter for now but I live in  hope  :pray:
Or I could just register me car as a bank and get billions of taxpayers cash  

We pay ?5 road tax on anything over 25yrs here in the Isle of Man.My 82 GTI and 83GTI both cost me ?10 per yr!Bargain,and we have no speed limits just to get our fivers worth!

There used to be a 25yrs cut off for road tax, then it mistically changed to 35yrs, probably a labour stealth tax

As for the so called Congestion charge it was an incredibly stupid idea, the traffic to manchester isn't 'that' bad, the train service is already over burdened and its a private company, so giving them money would be an incredible waste. They already charge more than the rest of europe so why isn't our service already better? There's about a million and 1 reason I can think of this being a poor idea and only a handful of reasons to pick it.

Toll roads arnt that bad an idea but again, we already have a system of tax for this, road tax. They'd have to completly redo the tax system if they were to incorperate this and what about all the jobs it'd get rid of?

Charging people for traveling is already in effect its tax on petrol, you travel further, you more use petrol you pay more, you drive a gas guzzling 5litre sports car, well you pay more too, anything else is just a revenue gathering excercise.

paul_c said

In reality, what would happen is that there would be a 'rush' for >25 year old cars, and selling a 23 or 24 year old one will be nigh on impossible.

talking rubbish again there.

who wouldn't buy a car safe in  the knowledge that in a year or 2 they won't have to pay tax for it.

knowing that they can get it cheaper than a 25 yr old car.

infact a 24 year old car with 12 months tax is no differant to a 25 year old car at all.

don't think you thought that one through before typeing it.

i understand this MAY be the case for the later cabbys but thats all. (not that you think the cabbys are worth much anyway paul)

kavlfc said

Or I could just register me car as a bank and get billions of taxpayers cash  

suppose you could do this, it is very similar,

you put loads and loads of money into it with let money in return, just for the knowledge that it still exists.

Madferret said

There used to be a 25yrs cut off for road tax, then it mistically changed to 35yrs, probably a labour stealth tax

Nothing mystic about it, it was a rolling 25 years cut off and Labour abolished it in 1998, ten years have passed since then so there's the 35 years.

GavB95 said

Madferret said

There used to be a 25yrs cut off for road tax, then it mistically changed to 35yrs, probably a labour stealth tax

Nothing mystic about it, it was a rolling 25 years cut off and Labour abolished it in 1998, ten years have passed since then so there's the 35 years.

A song springs to mind :

Gordon is a Moron by Jilted John

whatalotafun said

paul_c said

In reality, what would happen is that there would be a 'rush' for >25 year old cars, and selling a 23 or 24 year old one will be nigh on impossible.

talking rubbish again there.

who wouldn't buy a car safe in  the knowledge that in a year or 2 they won't have to pay tax for it.

knowing that they can get it cheaper than a 25 yr old car.

infact a 24 year old car with 12 months tax is no differant to a 25 year old car at all.

don't think you thought that one through before typeing it.

i understand this MAY be the case for the later cabbys but thats all. (not that you think the cabbys are worth much anyway paul)

Its not rubbish, it happens with Beetles. If you had 2 cars side by side and they were otherwise identical, except that one cost ?185 to tax and one cost ?0, which would you buy?

It's true what your saying Paul, but it's only happened because the once rolling exemption was frozen at 1973. The proposition in the OP is to reinstate a rolling (not fixed) exemption, and so this wouldn't happen.

At the same time you wouldn't have everyone rushing out for a pre '84 car as the majority of people think it is more economical to replace a car every 3 years (once MOT exemption runs out, or warranties expire).

Its not rubbish, it happens with Beetles. If you had 2 cars side by side and they were otherwise identical, except that one cost ?185 to tax and one cost ?0, which would you buy?

thats what he's getting at Paul

If it was changed, all beetles would become tax exampt, I always remember a mate of mien had a 73 camper and i had a 69, mine was tax exempt and he was all excited cos his was soon to become tax exempt..then they changed the ruling which really pee'd him off


so if it was to be re-actioned again and each year it continued rolling thne those with cars that are 22, 23, 24 etc know that they wont have long before they become tax free!!..

Its not going to be changed though……the government have said on many occasions, that they're not going to make it a rolling year again.

If they're going to change anything, they'll do road pricing + reduction/elimination of road tax. The only problem is, there's so much opposition (half of which I think it people blindly clicking links and filling in a form on the internet) that no government will take the political 'risk' to actually improve the system.

They'll make changes again, for sure, but their hands are really tied because its a politically sensitive area. So the changes will be to newer cars (easier to introduce a rule for new ones, than retrospectively apply a rule to older cars) and will be very minor.

So, some of us are left with the current situation of owning >1 car and having to pay road tax multiple times, even though we can only drive one at a time!!!!! Or going through some ridiculous admin of getting refunds, taking it out for a month, etc etc.

I think every post here has missed the whole point.  The 25 year tax free scheme was originally introduced because it was deemed that genuinely classic cars were being left to rot as the owners would have to pay road tax on them and couldn't afford / want to pay for a daily car and a classic car.

It was then frozen as you got a an era of more mass produced cars and, let's be honest,  ultimately not a great period for car production that will ever be deemed "classic" in the true sense of the word.  

Throughout the 70's there was a lot a crap produced.  Will you feel sad that you don't see more Austin Allegros on the road?  I won't.  Does a Mk3 golf deserve to be tax free in 10 years just because it's 25 years old?  I'd say no.

The free road fund license was brought in to protect and preserve classic cars and I'm pleased about it as I've owned 5 or 6 cars with free tax.  To be honest I actually think it pretty fair now and I think most people agree hence why there's only been 150 people sign the pointless petition.

If it really bothers you that much just chalk it down to another Blair Government balls up!

So Tony Blair froze the rolling exemption because he doesn't like cars that were designed/built after '73?

No - it was a Gordon Brown tax saving measure during his period of 'prudence'.  I was more being sarcastic as it doesn't bother me that much - to be honest if you're getting bothered about 185 quid a year tax which you think you should be let off, wait for the next 10 years of tax hikes to cover the banking bailout, VAT reduction, economic stimulus ……….