Road Tax time again

Depends on whether wing mirrors were cancelled by Churchillian edict in 1937...

Rich_cb wrote:

Is Road Tax/ VED the new Wing Mirror/ Door Mirror?

No because wing/door mirror is the same object just somewhere else on the vehicle,  and most people can understand that.  However, anyone who doesn't ride a bike seems to think there is a specific tax we all pay to use the roads, and that if they pay their "road tax" that entitles them to drive where (and how) they like.  

I get a demand for £0 on both my household's cars (as 'Historic Vehicles').

It only gives me the option to pay that amount for the whole 12 months, though: I can't divide it and pay for six months

Belching out all thouse fumes eh ?!

Yeah, but they're historic fumes

One of the cars now does about ten miles a week (my wife), the other hasn't moved for six weeks.

Both vehicles are serviced once a year although they don't need to be MOTd, and we keep on top of repairs etc.

I try and balance off the cost (financial and carbon footprint) of manufacture of a new vehicle vs the costs of scrapping a perfectly good but historic one.

David9694 wrote:

Are you Caratacus Potts? Is your wife Truly Scrumptious? 

Well, I think she's pretty tasty

(Our cars aren't that old: 1970 and 1973).

brooksby wrote:

I get a demand for £0 on both my household's cars (as 'Historic Vehicles').

It only gives me the option to pay that amount for the whole 12 months, though: I can't divide it and pay for six months

So, no Direct Debit option to spare you all the administrative hassle?

But seriously (out of curiosity), are you still required to go through the motions to "tax your car", albeit at zero cost? I presume that prior to the abolition of the tax disc, you were required to display one. And completing the process does prove insurance, if only at that time, and can be searched by others online.

You go online to tax the vehicle and complete the process. Insurance doesn't figure into this.

You still have to go onto their website or phone them,  and still go through the options to confirm the vehicle's details and that you have insurance "and an MOT if required" (it isn't).

And yes, prior to their abolition we were posted and had to display a tax disc which showed zero-rated.

(I suspect that the admin of all of that cost more than £0.00...).

David9694 wrote:

Photo . Might be nice if they said "paying your VED"?

Yeah, I head an ad for a mercedes this morning which is part-electric, "so you pay less road tax" 

There may be a technical distinction between tax and excise duty (or between tax, excise and duty even), but it's common to refer to it as tax. At least the form is clear that it's vehicle tax, not road tax - isn't that the main beef? 

Exactly. And insisting on calling it VED isn't really going to help anything, because to most people it'll be a meaningless bunch of letters that stands for they don't know what, and they'll still just see 'Road Tax'. At least 'Vehicle Tax' is closer to being accurate than 'Road Tax' and less opaque than 'VED'.

Perhaps we should be lobbying for them to start calling it 'Vehicle Pollution Tax' instead?

mdavidford wrote:

Exactly. And insisting on calling it VED isn't really going to help anything, because to most people it'll be a meaningless bunch of letters that stands for they don't know what, and they'll still just see 'Road Tax'. At least 'Vehicle Tax' is closer to being accurate than 'Road Tax' and less opaque than 'VED'.

Perhaps we should be lobbying for them to start calling it 'Vehicle Pollution Tax' instead?

I'd rather just see them scrap it, and increase fuel duty in a revenue neutral way. Let the ones doing the polluting be the ones that pay.

The downside is of course that fuel sales should start to reduce due to electric vehicle roll out, and will have to be replaced by some other revenue stream, but the vehicle tax is outdated and serves no purpose any more.

The disc was a useful indicator that a vehicle had been insured and passed as roadworthy at least once in the last year, but now the disc is not required, and insurance and MOT records are freely available online.

Totally agree.

I tend to agree, but that's a whole other discussion.