Weight-Based Motor Vehicle Tax

[gl556tr]

Weight-based motor vehicle tax would help financially to improve the general state of UK's roads. This factor in the calculation of a vehicle's tax should, hopefully, lever the owner into reducing car-size and related pressure on our environment.

[bobbinwales]

Far easier to put it all as fuel tax sureley. Agree the present systems a mess. Bigger cars are more expensive to tax now tho. Mine was £20-£30 pa but new one is £500 based on what I don't know as its mpg is just as good

[bobbinwales]

Certainly these huge motor homes driving through our countryside for weeks on end should pay more tax for there damage to roads and the environment. Caravans too.
Weight tax for lorry would push up delivery costs though

[davebro]

Road pricing will be the next big hit on drivers' wallets and will be applied on the roads taking the greatest volumes of traffic.

[netherfield]

Trucks pay enough based on weight already. Haulage is in a bad state at the moment, with a shortage of drivers, lack of decent parking and facilities, last thing they need is an increase in road tax.

[theshedman]

As netherfield says lorrys already pay by number of axles and axle weight so can work out very expensive. With cars though it is strange that you can buy a car one year and it has very low tax for life, then buy the same car but say a year newer and find the tax is much higher.

[davebro]

Isn't our current system indirectly weight-based anyway? Bigger, heavier cars generally use more fuel and pay extra in road tax based on emissions & fuel tax at the pumps.

With a big future take-up of electric & hybrid those tax takes will go down substantially so some way will have to be found to make up the shortfall.

[theshedman]

Taxing cars can be strange davebro, my friend has a bigger car than mine and is a bit older but his tax is much lower than mine. His engine is bigger and diesel whereas mine is petrol.

[davebro]

Agreed - my car tax is £27 pm. A newer car with the same mpg etc, would be £13 pm.

[waterboatman]

I must nip round the shop. Back in ten.

[emmie]

wrong thread boaty

[theshedman]

My son pays £20 a year for his tax whereas I pay £150 a year for mine same car, same engine his is 4 years older than mine. Just doesn't add up to me.

[davebro]

It seems for cars post-2017 they switched from tax based on emissions to a flat rate for all vehicles. Electric £0 Petrol/Diesel £155 (currently).So some that had low tax due to low emissions now pay the flat rate. And those paying a higher rate continue to do so!

[Hopkirk]

My daughter's 65 plate Peugeot 108 is zero tax. The same car a couple of years younger pays full tax.

[gl556tr]

Yes, davebro, currently Electric £0 / Petrol £155 / Diesel £155, which leaves me wondering the logic in achieving such taxes.

Although the EV spews nothing out its rear end and Diesel poisons our air more than Petrol, all have brakes and tyres that emit assorted toxins++ that we all inhale. Illogically, the weight is ignored. This should be a factor that must be part of the vehicle-tax calculation.

[davebro]

It's a complete dog's breakfast & patently unfair to many car owners.

[theshedman]

Although not right the old system of it being mostly on engine size was better in some ways as at least when you were looking for a new car you knew before buying it how much tax you were going to pay. Some these days pay no tax but still use and cause damage to the roads. I thought that the idea of electic vehicles and the like was to help the environment and cheaper fuel not to get out of paying to maintain the roads they use and yes I know they say it's not a road tax these days but they still have to maintained.