[Closed] Car 'road tax' discs...

Don't most companies give you a discount for paying by direct debit?

You would need to add 16p a litre to get the £140 tax back

eltonerino - Member

And we can only get the MOT done at test centres.

Helmets to compulsory and HIV Vests as well.

Do they do bad versions?

Don't most companies give you a discount for paying by direct debit?

TV licence is more expensive via quarterly DD as well - by about £5.

You would need to add 16p a litre to get the £140 tax back

Bin VED, [b]drop[/b] the price of fuel and bring in a proper well thought out road pricing scheme. Link your insurance premium to that too.

Drive your 1.3L Micra on a 200 mile motorway journey at 3am? Pay 5p.
Drive your 3L V6 4x4 on a 3 mile urban journey at 8am. Pay £5.

OK, a bit generalised but the idea is sound in principle. Unfortunately it involves something being well thought out and implemented which cuts this country out from doing it.

richmtb - Member
How much fuel duty would you need to add though?

Band G petrol car driving 10,000 miles a year @ 40mpg

= £1477 in fuel

So presumable you want this to be + £175 to cover the tax.

You would need to add 15p a litre

For a more STW version

Diesel Audi A4 (natch)

Band F = £140 tax
10,000 miles at 52 mpg = £1200

You would need to add 16p a litre to get the £140 tax back

So a couple of pennies on fuel won't cover it

Depends what mileage equivalent you base it on doesn't it? [url= https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/8940/nts2010-09.pdf ]Summary of 2010 car usage figures[/url]

looks like 10K PA might actually exceed the overall national average for cars, although Diesels appear to do higher mileages than petrol, could be a useful differentiator there as you could adjust the "VED rate" for each fuel type...

your 16p per litre would probably be under gunning it a bit TBH, but then the goal is that over the year the "Average" motorist in the "Average" car will pay about the same in VED and those on the high side and low side proportionally more or less...

As it stands and even after Georges little adjustments someone doing ~5K of private use miles a year in your example Audi pays the same VED as someone doing 25K even though the impact of their driving patterns on the environment and wear and tear on our roads network are pretty different.

Notice i mention "Private mileage", I'm sure that when it comes business mileage, companies and contractors will be keeping receipts and if there is some sort of business mileage VED ruling from HMRC it can be applied appropriately, they seldom miss a trick...

Like I said the better your car and your driving habits are on fuel the less VED you end up paying... seems eminently fair and sensible IMO...

Bin VED, drop the price of fuel and bring in a proper well thought out road pricing scheme.

No, no, please don't.

If a genuine pay-for-use road pricing scheme was brought in then motorists would actually have a legitimate case for saying that cyclists don't pay their way.

We all ALREADY pay for the roads. A road-pricing scheme would mean we were paying for them twice, unless it was accompanied by a reduction in council tax or the like.

@bigyinn not quite the same. Ours are only at DVA MOT centres. No chance of getting a cheap MOT here.
Not much chance of getting rid of tax discs either as this is a DVLA thing.

The proposed new system is so incomprehensibly odd that it might not work quite as people imagine, if at all.
eg in the future if you buy a secondhand car you do not get the existing equivalent of the "tax disc" with the car. You will have to buy / pay for a new "tax disc" as the new owner of the car. The previous owner will have to apply to get a refund on the remainder of the old "tax disc" for the car.
Lots of confusion, duplication, paperwork in the post and DVLA workload overload; if it does happen as intended.

paperwork in the post

Why would there be any of that ?
Surely part of the idea is to move the process online.

Someone give me a reason why this is a bad idea, I'd be interested to know if I've missed some reason why VED is charged separately at a fixed rate.

You'd get shafted if you lived somewhere rural wouldn't you? You'd basically be subsidising people who live in cities.

I've not been displaying my 'tax' disc for about 6 months. not been stopped yet. wasn't even noticed on my MOT (whether they check that or not?).

I haven't displayed a tax disc on any of my motorbikes for 10 years or more. I've been stopped during that time and it's not been mentioned. Just saying like. 🙂

Same here.