How would you like to pay road tax on EVERY car you own?

[fossil the 4x4]

This is potentially very bad news for the off-road scene.

The government are planning changes in the road tax rules which will abolish the SORN allowance.

This means that if you have a log book for ANY car post 1973 you will have to pay tax on it i.e all your 'resting' landrovers, future projects, Q plate specials that you trailler to events etc etc.

If you want to avoid paying you will have to register a vehicle as scapped. Imagine the hassle of then avoiding a Q plate when you subsequently get back on the road.

What next? tax for ride on lawnmowers? If a vehicle is off the road why should we have to pay for it.

The classic car mags have already started campaigns against this proposal, register your name at practical.petition@emap.com or have a look through practical classics or similar next time you are in WHSmiths.

Come on folks this is definately worth a letter or email to your mp.

[Annette]

Here it is already more or less like that, but at least you don't have to pay insurance on a resting vehicle.
How much is road tax for your V8? lorry or passenger car?
And .. excuse me asking saying that
Missus didn't want a Freelander?!
Of course not. Women prefer V8s:D :D

[andreadavide]

Seems that you are getting what we got in Italy some twenty years ago. We used to have road tax paid only if the car was on the road.What happened was a lot of people paying the reduced rate for small cars then "correcting" the tax disc and displaying it to larger cars, or other nice frauds. Then they switched to a "property tax", i.e. you had to pay simply because the car was registered... This led to an ecatomb of "backyard projects"and generally impoverished the "resources" of vintage and valuable cars we had. Most of the Series in Italy disappeared in that slaughter, also because a money thirsty government in order to raise revenues taxed diesel cars and 4wd vehicles as "luxury vehicles"...
If the UK gov is following the Italian route, next step will be making not possible to re-register a previously scrapped car...
Property tax is the most efficient option from a gov's point of view, you do not have to check tax discs around, just to check on DVLA registers... however, although lately, here has been introduced a thirty years rule for historical tax extemption...
I think that the British collectors need at a minimum resource to have a "mobile" treshold of thirty years on historic vehicles extemption...
Beware... the n-European union within a few years will make your Q plate paradise of frankenrovers to disappear.... very sad....
Andrea

[si_guru]

Hmmm.. This is always a tricky subject.

There will have to be a loop hole somewhere in the proposal to allow motor traders to hold second hand vehicles in stock. I guess there may be the answer for 'resting' vehicles?

Also we really have to do as much as we can to get those un-taxed, uninsured, no-MOT w*****s off the road. If you've ever been run into by one of those guys you'll know what I mean.

Round here recently the police had a 1-day road side check on all vehicles. I think something like 20 to 30 of the cars stopped had no insurance or no tax.

However... I've registered my objection on the site you mentioned.

[fossil the 4x4]

Yupp. Don't have a problem with getting the uninsured off the road but what is wrong with having to display an insurance disc next to your tax disc and authorising everyone and anyone to report undisced cars.

Besides, taxing our resting projects is not going to deter the no insurance scum anyway, if they are uninsured now they will be uninsured later.

[jimbrown]

What happened to the promises of this government, the road tax is still here despite what they promised that it would be added on at the pump. This is a much fairer system by far. I also think that giving massive fines to the ******s that drive with no insurance, tax and mot would replenish the pot a bit. In fact the car thieves round here should spend many years rotting in a siberian salt mine never to see any type of vehicle again, it is costing me an extra £350 a year for the pleasure of living in this postcode due to car thefts and vandals. ':

[si_guru]

I think the reality is that we *do* pay at the pump. The cost of road tax has not rosen in line with inflation, it has been much slower. Also the tax disc system 'ideally' means that at some point during the year somebody checks you have an MOT and insurance. What we pay for is the administraion of that process.

It costs 15 quid to tax a 50cc moped. I doubt that money even covers the cost of the letter you get to remind you that you tax is about to expire.

I know that is not what you wan to hear, but if you look at other countries it is true. In Ireland for example petrol is about 65 pence a litre, but road tax for a 2.25 landie would be about 400 quid a year.

The only country not to fit is France. Yes those non-beef eating, lamb burning, apple bashing neighbours of ours got their road tax abolished a couple of years ago. Of course petrol is cheap there too. I'm not going to even talk about the diesel....

Insurance.... I think you should start a new thread for that!