Phew that was close - budget guzzlers!

"Gordon Brown is planning to double road tax for the country’s most polluting gas-guzzling cars in Wednesday’s Budget, The Times understands."

Or translated as: "We heard it in the pub so we ran it."

I was worried when I heard about this as I have one I need to tax and its free now and I freaked thinking the £450 road tax would possibly be retrospective - but I had not brought the docs to get my tax disc with me...

This is not a tax on 4x4s.

This is a tax on cars which emit more than 225 whatsits of thingy per doodad.

When people get all high and mighty about ths they forget that a large numbert of SUVs, 4x4s, whatever do not produce 225g/KM. And that a lot of ordinary saloon cars do.

IIRC the Porsche Cayenne will escape this tax, but the V6 Mondeo will not....

For some reason its OK to hate 4x4 drivers.

I bet the bulk of the SUVs are company cars for directors or whatever who won't even notice. However you'll think twice about buying a Mondeo V6 used...

I can see this killing the larger engined regular price car merket.

Assuming it is not applied retrospectively it will only effect cars made since 2006.

Seems the rich and company car types will gobble this up without a worry really, i'd imagine.

However if I did have loadsa money and an X5, or powerful new car in the bracket, i'd be using it more not less, if i'm paying more.

it doesnt affect me directly right now but I still wanna see the big picture worked on propperly not just taxing British motorists.


the race is on to sort that V8, while i can actually use it....

Implications of this:
In ten years time (or even 5 years) these cars will be worthless due to the monster road tax.
Imagine now your petrol-headed Prole who currently rattles around in a Range Rover because it can tow a big trailer for moving auto-tat. Now remove the 'gas guzzler' from that equasion... what are the options? Drive the tat on the road, regardless of condition? Put a 700kg trailer + car behind a Fiesta 1.1? Could get interesting.
Just thinking long-term....

Bu88ers, shopping for MR2 tax next month, its 1587cc or similar! Doh! no change really, its what I guessed it was.

Yeah when they are old, will there be more ringing, ID swapping etc, certainly fluctuations in price. will certainly preserve a new set of cheaper-tax-classic cars'

I find the whole scheme of tax based on Co2 emissions dodgy, to be honest...
I just don't get the global warning from human Co2 thing viable scientifically, it goes against everything I learnt at school and uni and smacks of policy driven pseudo cobblers to me. I mean, Co2 is constantly recycled on a global scale (equilibrium), makes up less than 1/20th of 1% of the atmosphere. of this, we as a species contribute about 1-2% of that (subject to opinion, its hard to measure). The planet IS warming up (at the moment) but its not us and there is bot all we can do about it (in terms of Co2, tyre fires are still out, lol), and all this Co2 rubbish from the so called experts and governments makes my curse word boil.

Sorry, rant over.;D

^
Talking of which ...

...when are they going to 'move the ball along' for tax exemption on cars, it's about time they did; say pre '82 (25+ year old like when originally set up).

as it happens thats part of the tories manifesto, to reintroduce the rolling tax exemption if they get back in.

Brilliant wind up!


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I just want someone real-world, brainy, fair and uncorrupted to run the country. wonder if that will ever happen

either way i'll be voting.