UK Car Taxation

Many things in this country are considered unfair…however, this one I feel extremely strongly about.

For as long as I can remember, “Road Fund Licence”, or car tax to you and me, has been slowly creeping up. It’s was inevitable, along with the increase in fuel prices. However, in the last five years or so, it seems that the government have totally lost their minds!

In my opinion, tax should simply be added to fuel, therefore, the more miles that you do, the more tax you pay. It even works for large cars, as they use more fuel, it costs them more to travel the same distance, a pay off for owning a car that does poor fuel economy.

The current system was, clearly, thought up by mindless fools.

For this example, we will ignore the current “Showroom Tax” nonsense as I will cover this in another post, and concentrate on vehicles that are already registered.

The tax bands work on an alphabetical basis, going from “A” to “M”. And if your car emits less than 100g/km of C02, then you pay no road fund whatsoever, but, as the emitted C02 goes up, so does the cost, B is £20, C = £30, then a huge jump to £90 for D, £110, £125, £155, £180, £200, £235, £245, £425 and ending with “M” at £435.

This, frankly, is outrageous. My uncle owns a 3.0V6 Jaguar that is in tax band “L”, a years road fund therefore costs £425, but my uncle covers less than 6,000 miles a year, meaning he does not pollute much, however, his neighbor owns a Seat Ibiza Eco-Motive, and as this is an “Eco Friendly Car” and is tax band “A”, it costs £0 for a year of road fund, but the owner of the Seat clocks up 20,000+ miles a year.

Now I ask, who pollutes more? The neighbor obviously, but the government clearly doesn’t see it that way, or they wouldn’t charge us an extortionate amount just to keep the Jaguar on the road.

It is absolutely disgusting that motorists are being robbed left, right and center, just for using their cars. The government are totally aware that the automobile is an everyday essential, and no matter how much they tax using it, it will carry on being used. This, to them, is just an exceptionally easy way to make money. As simple as that.

I hope that now a new government is in that there will at least be some attempt to resolve this simply brainless idea.