Vehicle Excise Duty

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,218
I am confused.

The DVLA wish me to pay £260. Over an average year, my car will emit a total of 2,228,000g of CO2. I understand this and appreciate this and do not feel that the £260 is excessive.

But if I was a sales rep travelling the country in a 320d, the DVLA would require me to pay £35 a year to emit 5,540,000g of CO2.

So, 7 times less CO2 based tax in order to emit more than double the amount of CO2.

Can somebody explain why it is correct to do it in this way? Can somebody give me one good reason why the vehicle excise duty for doing 30k a year in a 3 Series diesel shouldn't be a lot more than £35 a year?

:)
 
I have often wondered this, but i then i figure they would argue that they are already paying more duty on the fuel if they are doing more miles.

It still doesnt make much sense to me though.
 
Jono8 said:
I have often wondered this, but i then i figure they would argue that they are already paying more duty on the fuel if they are doing more miles.
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The counter to this is simple - either it's a emission based duty, in which case it should be based on actual emissions, or it's not, in which case emissions should play no part in setting the rates.

Currently we have an emission based duty which is not based on the actual emissions of the car. This is daft and illogical.
 
I don't understand it but it may make you feel better to know that I paid 220 quid for a years tax for my Old VW Golf estate. :(

On the positive side though I am about to pay 16 quid for the tax for my Chopper for a year. :p
 
Charge vehicle excise duty on physical vehicle size. This would increase the total income from vehicle excise duty as we'd stop all the superecotrollcars playing the system and getting £35 a year duty for doing 40k a year in a large saloon car.

Use the saving to reduce fuel duty.

Here ends pipe dream ;)
 
There should be a small basic Road Fund Tax, based on a combination of BHP, Torque & CO2 emission and the tax on Petrol & Diesel should be increased to account for mileage and thus the amount of CO2 emitted. The only immediately obvious downside to this scheme is that it would remove an incentive to manufacture cars that pollute less.

But then you already know this and don't provide figures to support your assertion because that might call your rant into question :p
 
So tax based on miles per annum? Would require more paperwork/time surely? How else would they keep track of the ~30m cars in Britain and how many miles each one is doing per year?
 
stockhausen said:
But then you already know this and don't provide figures to support your assertion because that might call your rant into question :p
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The premise is simple enough that no figures are required.

If you wish to set a duty based on emissions then it must be exactly that - based on emissions. It cannot be a fixed amount, as this is illogical. A fixed level of duty is not emissions based because it fails to take into account the fact that tailpipe emissions are directly proportional to the mileage the car covers.

The only sensible way to tax CO2 is through fuel duty. The only sensible way to have a fixed vehicle excise duty is to disconnect it from CO2.

Otherwise you end up with scenarios such as that I've outlined in my OP - the annual CO2 emissions of a 530i covering 6k a year are less than half that of the annual CO2 emissions of a 320d covering 32k a year, yet the annual CO2 based vehicle excise duty is 7 times more expensive for the lower mileage car.

This is illogical.
 
Maccy said:
So tax based on miles per annum? Would require more paperwork/time surely? How else would they keep track of the ~30m cars in Britain and how many miles each one is doing per year?
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simple stick a few pence on a litre of fuel. bin VED


more miles - more fuel- more road tax
 
This is why most of motoring-related the tax revenue is designed to come from fuel sales - which has a much closer relationship to the amount of CO2 emitted...
 
Maccy said:
So tax based on miles per annum? Would require more paperwork/time surely? How else would they keep track of the ~30m cars in Britain and how many miles each one is doing per year?
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Why would it require more paperwork / time if they simply increased the price of Petrol / Diesel :confused:

Not perfect but would certainly tend to address Foxy's quite reasonable concerns.
 
It would also solve the problem of untaxed cars and save the cost of administration/policing of vehicle excise duty.
 
Duke said:
It should just be scrapped and put on fuel really.
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It's already on fuel!

tax.png


:p
 
The current situation disproportionally affects those that choose to cover lower milages.

It also encourages the gaming of the system by by manufacturers to produce figures that will never be achived in the real world.

£210 for 3000 miles at ~182g/km = 878,701g of CO2 going by the combined figure in my car.
 
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