Geddon

I remember growing up and seeing protests and marches on the news all the time (or was it just poll tax?).
Why does nobody do this anymore? Is it because you get labelled as terrorist now?

About time for a revolution isn't it? Where do I sign up?

I think Flash has had quite enough of my money now

Lee247

This Government should be ashamed of themselves. They have ripped the pee out of the public since they came to power.
I have never seen a Country be so disallusioned and disappointed. I would love to know how to say, NO MORE
If my priniciples would let me, I would never tax my car again, sadly, I was brought up to obey the law

andythejock01wrx

Well you see it's like this folks :

The Govt know if they increased road tax to, say £3000pa, we'd all just say "bugger off" ; we wouldn't pay it and it and it would become unenforceable - a la Poll Tax in the 80s.But no, they know fine well that if they increase it to £400pa we will simply pay the bloody bill !

Talking of polls, there was a poll done on the views of motorists on fuel pricing a few years ago which resulted in the the statistic that fuel prices would need to double (suddenly) to have a dramatic effect on the public's fuel consumption - same goes for road tax. It's a war of attrition. On our wallets ! (and 84's purse ).

PS Diablo - you off to Aviemore or further north ? Yup, you'll need a big 4x4 for their winter !

Lee247

Even the moths can't be bothered to come out of my purse, for fear of being air taxed

andythejock01wrx

night Lesley

r32

How does increasing tax on cars with high emissions help the environment? Or taxing people going on holiday?

They just use it as a money making excuse under the being green guise.
Want to do something positive introduce legislation similar to adding catalytic convertors so that vehicles produce less emissions, but that doesnt get them any money does it?

TelBoy

r32 - one word - "deterrent". It doesn't HAVE to be about taxing you more if you don't let them, only if you want to maintain your right to pollute the environment. It all seems pretty obvious to me.

///\oo/\\\

Tel,

How does the fact that a car with half the emissions/twice the economy doing more than twice the miles of the less "environmentally friendly" car sit with you?

In that scenario, the cheap to tax car is the higher polluter.

TelBoy

D - one word - "anomoly". LOL. Yes we could concoct all sorts of scenarios all day long where things fall through the net, but i suppose it's a balance between having a blanket policy and creating a bureaucratic nightmare encompassing all the options. Speaking personally, a balance between road tax and fuel tax would ideally cover "most" situations, in theory at least.

///\oo/\\\

Yup, I'd agree with that.

As long as the balance wasn't set by a brainless politician and any increases in the "green" tax were actually spent directly on tackling environmental issues

OllyK

Sadly a Smart Car isn't practical for people with families, or people that need to move a lot of kit around as part of their job. Add to this, we as an organisation can quite often have 3 or 4 people going to a meeting, is it better to get them all in 1 average car or send them in 2 Smarts?

WRXMATT

Scrap Catalytic converters, don't they turn carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide???????

If this goes on how long until they start removing "high polluting" cars from the roads altogether? It will happen eventually and we'll all be driving little electric ones. They will also make us breath out less and ban farting. Baked beans will then be stopped so what will we have on our toast, bread sales will drop and bread makers will go out of business. We then won't have anything to feed the birds and they will get upset. They will then turn on us like in that film. End of the human race.

Thanks gordon.

Clarebabes

Labour - screwed the country up again like they did in the 1970s...

eldudereno

Road tax should be added to the cost of fuel, simple as that. My car is 2.5 litres so it will be giving out higher than average emissions but I only do 4k miles/year so my annual emissions will be less than some company diesel car which is clocking up 20k miles/year and paying less road tax than me!!!!

SlimJ_2005

We shouldnt really complain though, this extra income will make the NHS even better than it is already, all roads in superb condition, people on benefits with extra money to help them get by and update the old CRT tv to a nice power hungry Plasma. This will also help to pay for more missiles to fire at other countries, excellent!

Seriously though, £400 is rediculous considering most every day sport cars are likely to fall into that category yet they probably polute less than Mr Jones' 1989 1.0l Fiesta thats on its last legs and belching out smoke, yet qualifies for cheaper tax due to engine size... it doesn't make sense.

The banding needs to be changed IMO, no way can you stick a 2.0 litre car in with a Ferrari Enzon and Veyron, thats just not right!

On another subject, its like the council tax, were in band G I think, but not far off H. Why should someone that has a 4 bed house worth £450,000 (not sure where bracket H starts...) pay the same amount as someone with a 16 bed mansion thats worth £10m?!?

You could say don't vote for labour at the next election, but really, who are the alternative, there all the same?!?

ethanrob

iTrader: (3)

They will never remove high poluting cars,this will hit them in the pocket,and as far as this goverment is concerned,that is all that matters,why will charging more tax reduce pollution,it wont at all,as said in previous posts,people will just stump up the extra £££

But its always britain,we are a small island in a vast world,and i dont see any of the "super powers" doing over there residents with "super taxe's"

america,do they pay road tax ????? do they foooooooooook
do they pay 60 odd pence per litre on fuel ????? do they buggery

Plain and simple,this goverment does not give a rat's *** about the enviroment,they just use it as an excuse to print money,the more money they rake in,the more they can p**s down the drain on worthless crap(olympics anyone)

Bunch of nobber's in suit's

mark

OllyK

The bigger question is how does the value of your house reflect the impact you have on local services. I doubt a couple in a £10 million house generate a much rubbish as the 15 chavs packed in to a council house on the other side of town. Council tax is just another income tax, as in some ways, is the road tax banding.

///\oo/\\\

And there lies the irony Olly.

The original "poll tax" or community charge was the fairest in concept.

The problem is, too many of the great unwashed would have had to give up their booze and **** to pay for the services they have a call upon.

SlimJ_2005

This is a good question, the leaflets to 'justify' the huge tax makes good reading.

A band 'A' property costs less to police apparently, well, most Band A properties around this area are full of low life scum that have no use to society and generally cause trouble. Why should we in a relitively crime free village in a nice area have to pay more than these people?

We get our bins emptied once a week, family of 4, yet we produce very little rubbish, most we recycle and have to take a lot to the tip (so rubbish collection once a fortnight will not have an affect on us, it will on our neighbours who have never heard of the term recycle or just 'don't have the time').

We see a road sweeper once a year, even then they do an dire job, we get out in our road and do it ourselves and cut the bushes, something council is supposed to do.

We've never had to call on the police or fire brigade in our 5 years in this house (touch wood).

Wheres our discount?!

Triggaaar

No it isn't. I counter it like this: I've already bought my car, I shouldn't have to sell it to buy the car you think I should have. Evidence suggests that the pollution from my car has no effect on global warming, which is what the public is worried about.

Honestly? If it was purely an environmental measure, they should just ban high polluting cars. Since it is not linked to usage, this charge will not affect how much we drive our cars, so it won't help the environment at all. The 2 main affects are 1) increase revenue 2) be seen to be doing something.

Fortunately, I only pay £110 a year (allegedly), because my 276bhp impreza has a 1.2 litre engine (apparantly)

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Here in Germany our road tax is calculated on emissions and my MY00 Classic 2.0 litre Turbo charged Subaru costs me a massive €145 a year.

I think I will stay here afterall

Steve

Triggaaar

The UK should look at the evidence available, and understand that the level of pollution from our cars is not causing global warming.

Yes, it is a gripe about a taxation on our lifestyle choice. Like if the government said it was going to tax people who play golf £1000 a year, you could argue that they are offering tennis as an alternative, and it "boils down to a gripe about taxation on your lifestyle choice".

It's taxing people as much as possible, where they think they can get away with it. They are using the miss-conception of 4x4s to get as much cash as they can. The public hate the idea that these rich people, living in town, have a 4x4 for the school run (even though many of the 4x4s are more economical than run of the mill family cars), so the government are going to grab every penny they can.

Good point - and in many cases, a vehicle will be scrapped early than it would have been, which is so environmentally unfriendly, it's ridiculous.

Leslie

This sorry band of self seeking politicians have been lying to us for at least the last ten years so why should we ever believe a word they say now. This is a high spending organisation in accordance with socialist thinking and Flash is known to dislike most people and in particular the middle classes which is where the wealth is generated in this country. He delights in screwing ths middle classes and extracting the very last penny of tax he can so that he can "**** it against the wall" spending it in ways that do not benefit the country as much as the vast beaurocracy which they have generated and which is costing us dearly!

The environment is a heaven sent opportunity to make more money out of us as will be the council tax revaluations which will really hit us between the eyes. They hate us having cars anyway so why not make the most of it to knock us even further down? Future road pricing will eventually make it impossible for many people to enjoy the bit of personal freedom they get from running a car.

Socialism states that we must all be equal except of course for those who control it all of course, so why not drag us all down to the bottom level! All this plus the rest of the secret agenda does not promise anything worthwhile for our respective futures!

Les

SJ_Skyline

We have to save the planet...


...and the UK is going to pick up the tab.


Cheers, Gordon you ****.

Triggaaar

When it was decided that new cars had to run on unleaded fuel, that seemed like a pretty good policy. Tell me how that can be spun to appear like a tax ruse. Those who already had leaded cars, weren't charged so much that they had to be scrapped (which would have been bad for the environment).

Holy Ghost

in 30 years time all new cars in the developed world will be hydrogen-powered anyway - just look at the momentum for hydrogen that GM has now got, as well as the power & performance.

in the meantime, make your life easy and switch to LPG. i did for precisely the reasons being put forward here: cost/emissions. i now drive a nicely sorted V8 discovery [which is a monstrous delight, even after two prodrive-fettled scoobies], pay £175 annual VED, 38p/litre for my fuel and have a vastly reduced pollutant footprint of between 30% to 99% that spans carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulates and oxides of nitrogen. while we're still stuck with old technology internal combustion, everyone's a winner with autogas.

i encourage you all to explore the LPG options next time you're thinking of changing your wheels ... i think you'd surprise yourself.

OllyK

That's like thinking electric cars are a good option. Until we have clean non-fossil fuel power stations, you're still polluting creating the electricity / hydrogen. Add to that water vapour is an even more significant green house gas and one wonder why the greens aren't already up in arms about it!

Flatcapdriver

Olly, there is no wonder fuel out there and people simply need to accept that it will be a mixture of fuels that takes us forward, unless that is the Government starts piling on the taxes as they did with LPG last time.

Ever wondered why LPG hasn't taken off to the extent that it should? Lack of trust on behalf of the suppliers and manufacturers, that's why.

OllyK

No but LPG is still hydrocarbon, the result of burning it is still CO2 & H2O (possible some CO and other stuff depending on purity). So if you're playing the green card, this isn't a solution.

Flatcapdriver

Its a far cleaner fuel than either diesel or petrol. The simple fact of the matter is that no current or projected technology can claim to be completely environmentally benign, so its pointless trying to score points by showing flaws in the various fuels.

As I said, there is no wonder cure and it will take a mixture of fuels to reduce emissions.