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The Government has admitted that it intends to include cars built before March 2001 in the new road tax regulations due to come into force next April.
The new tax rules are being introduced in stages, and will see cars that produce more than 225g/km being charged £300 next year and up to £445 in 2010, compared with the current rate of £210.
Regulations currently state that cars produced before March 2001 will be exempt from the highest Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) bands, but the government’s...Read the full article

I feel that this move by the government is completely unreasonable. Admitedly cars built before 2001 may be less efficient and more polluting than newer vehicles, but it is highly likely that people who drive older cars can't afford to drive a newer, cleaner vehicle. Why should they be penalised for something they cannot afford to avoid. This will also have a drastic impact on used car prices of older more polluting vehicles. Some may say that this is a good thing, get the more polluting cars off the road faster, but implementing a new law so far back in time is unnecessary. Its just another stealth tax on the less well off members of society.

I don't get it - th

 Surely this decision has

1- instantly taken an enormous dent out of (pre-01) second hand car values,

2 - is encouraging more people to buy new cars (which is in turn makes more Co2 than keeping older cars on the road) and

3 - finally have they not noticed the petrol prices?

When is a someone in Parliament actually going to admit that this whole country is built around road-travel and unless you you live or work in London public transport really isn't up to the job (arguably not in London either) of removing the car out of peoples daily travel equation. 

There seems to be a misconception that a high percentage of car use is laziness and unnecessary.  When is someone actually going to admit that as things stand we need cars and these anti-car taxes are an excuse for fleecing the motorist all yet again? 

Which party do I need to vote for to get some common sense on this issue? 

I am quite angry about the retrospective nature of these tax increases. I can see the environmental benefit of financially incentivising people to buy cleaner cars, but imposing these increases on the owners of vehicles built between 2001 and 2006, and now cars build before that date, is extremely unfair. These cars aren't going to magically dissapear, and it really penalises people who keep older cars for pleasure, but do little mileage, and therefore emit relatively small amounts of co2. I have already written to my MP, which is easy to do at www.TheyWorkForYou.com expressing my feelings on this topic, and there is an active petition on the government petition website which is also relevant to this story. I can only encourage you to sign it if you feel the same way as I do: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/UNFAIR-VED/ . Hope it's within the rules to post these links on the forum...never quite sure! Cheers.

Whats this the Labour govenment looking for more tax gains. Never!

 

This will also hit the poor as they tend to have older cars.

Autocar:

The Government has admitted that it intends to include cars built before March 2001 in the new road tax regulations due to come into force next April.

Have you got this right Ms Parrott?

This story made headline news this morning in The Times:

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article3842848.ece

"The Treasury admitted to The Times last night that it was quietly abolishing the exemption for older cars from the highest rates of vehicle excise duty. This means that owners of larger cars bought since March 2001 will find that their road tax will rise steeply from next April." Times 30.4.08 'Secret tax adds £200 to cost of running family cars'

How does their "since March 2001" square with your "before March 2001"? You can't both be right. What's your source from 'Government'? Do you have special briefings with Govt. information officers unavailable to Fleet St.? My you are special.

Re Parrott's report - the horse's mouth:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/2/5/bud08_chaptera.pdf

Vehicle Excise Duty (VED)

"A.97 With effect from 1 April 2009, and as set out in Table 8a, VED for cars, registered on or after 1 March 2001, will be reformed to include six new bands. From 1 April 2010, a new firstyear VED rate will be introduced. With effect from 1 April 2009, and as set out in Table 8b, the lower rate of VED for cars and light good vehicles registered before 2001 is frozen and the higher rate will rise by £15."

p.122 'Financial Statement and Budget Report[2008]'

amble:

Which party do I need to vote for to get some common sense on this issue? 

I have yet to hear any party talk sense about this issue. Motoring as it affects the general public is just not an issue for a lot of the people initiating and enacting the legislation - a lot of the "westmisnster village" live and obviously work in central London and don't actually need a car, they all use taxis paid for by us or they have a chauffeur driven government car paid for by us. I have to admit that if I lived and worked in London I'd be tempted not to run a car, public transport is good enough if not as good as it could be. However, even living only about 35 miles from this major world-class city, the public transport system is almost non-existant unless I want to catch a train to London itself, getting anywhere else without a car just takes too long.

The thing that really gets me about this is that this particular government seems to have fallen into the habit of making all sorts of charges retrospective. I don't have a problem with changes being made (although I might not agree with them) but they should in all fairness only apply to the future and not end up penalising actions taken years before when the changes were not even under discussion. It also seems to be typical of this government not to announce these types of changes but to wait for them to be discovered among the small print - an attitude that I find particularly despicable and another indication of how disreputable politics has become under the influence of the New Labour project.

 "the full article" seems to have changed and reads nothing like the OP!

 *** up!
 

Autocar:

The Government has admitted that it intends to include cars built before March 2001 in the new road tax regulations due to come into force next April.

Come on Ms Parrott, I'm waiting for an answer. Are you right with above or The Times, the govt.'s own publications wrong?

Times gets it wrong again:

"Cars registered before March 1, 2001, will continue to be exempt from the higher road-tax rates. Many of these cars will become more valuable than similar models that are younger and have done fewer miles but are liable for double the road tax."  http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article3850617.ece