Tax exemption for pre 1973 scraped next year??

[moggiemadman]

Hi guys,I hope this isn't true but a friend of mine was telling me that free tax has been scraped next year,Its been scraped with this new green policy.any information on this will be great

Cheers
John

[bmcecosse]

He's yanking your chains!

[moggiemadman]

I thought he was,but apparntly it was on the news,and on the bedford owners club forum,but i cant seem to find it anywhere :S

Cheers
John

[MoggyTech]

It's twaddle, no such plans.

[justinhenley]

Hi guys,I hope this isn't true

I did hear from a pretty good source (a Traffic police officer) that when the new tax bands for post 2001 cars come into force,there will be a crack down on cars misrepresented for tax purposes. Four door RangeRovers registered in 1973, coil sprung series two Landrovers registered in 1964. I'm not sure how but I'm guessing a flag for visual check on the ANPR database and (so my source tells me) this is not going to be a fixed penalty thing either, because unlike not having a tax disk which is a road traffic and tax evasion offence) misrepresenting your car to get it into a different tax band is fraud and is taken much more seriously.

Said police officer told me that they had just picked up a 1996 land rover on a 1964 registration. They are waiting to see what the judge says .. In theory it's about £2000 worth of fraud as it is assumed to have happened since the law was changed and they can claim up to 10 times the duty. In theory it could be a custodial sentance. Apparently when they impounded the said vehicle it was seen to be dripping something that the officer originally thought was ATF but turned out to be Red Diesel.

[les]

I think we should keep quiet about this pre 70 thing, it's best to forget it, that way people don't get Ideas.

[Alec]

Hello all,

we are fortunate in having a club, the Federation of British Historic Vehicles, who work very hard in monitoring and lobbying the government departments regarding legislation that affects older vehicles (such as making Cellulose paint available) and I believe that this story is a false one.

Unfortunately we have a committee advising the government that seems to favour paying for the scrapping old cars (80's and 90's I'm referring to now) to encourage the purchase of new and more environmentally friendly cars. Quite how scrapping perfectly serviceable cars and manufacturing all their replacements is environmentally friendly seems totally wrong to me. This could be part of the retrospective hike in 2001 cars' VED rates. It will knock the second hand value of such cars so dramatically that people will be happy to get something back for scrap?
The other point that seems to have escaped these 'wise' politicians is that with all the increases in taxes, fuel etc is just how are people going to be able to afford replacements?

Governments!!!

Alec

[aupickup]

agre with les on this

and if it happens it happens

let sleeping dogs ly

[paulhumphries]

Hi guys,I hope this isn't true

I did hear from a pretty good source (a Traffic police officer) that when the new tax bands for post 2001 cars come into force,there will be a crack down on cars misrepresented for tax purposes. Four door RangeRovers registered in 1973, coil sprung series two Landrovers registered in 1964. I'm not sure how but I'm guessing a flag for visual check on the ANPR database and (so my source tells me) this is not going to be a fixed penalty thing either, because unlike not having a tax disk which is a road traffic and tax evasion offence) misrepresenting your car to get it into a different tax band is fraud and is taken much more seriously.

Said police officer told me that they had just picked up a 1996 land rover on a 1964 registration. They are waiting to see what the judge says .. In theory it's about £2000 worth of fraud as it is assumed to have happened since the law was changed and they can claim up to 10 times the duty. In theory it could be a custodial sentance. Apparently when they impounded the said vehicle it was seen to be dripping something that the officer originally thought was ATF but turned out to be Red Diesel.

Police, and other bodies, went around the car park of a big Land Rover show a few years ago and caught a whole load of people who had suspect vehicles.

I recently wrote to the Conservatives and they said it's one of their policies to reintroduce the rolling 25 year exemption if they get back into power at next election. This is to come into line with the rest of Europe. Problem then is the rest of Europe has restriction of usage of "historic" vehicles so that might affect road tax. ie if you want your vehicle to be classified as historic and therefore no road tax payable then you will have to abide by the rules which are normally a certain radius of the registered address (something like 20 miles). If you want to use it like any other vehicle then road tax payable as applicable to others of the same type / engine size etc. Sounds fair to me as long as they don't retrospectivly apply that to pre '73 vehicle that currently enjoy free road tax and only to post '73 vehicles.

Whilst looking at the fault code plug on one of our cars a few years ago I found they had introduced a standard for the various sockets.
Reading more it was at the same time as road tax was based on emissions.
Further reading suggested that in future MOT testers will also plug into the ECU to check if the vehicle has had any thing done to increase emissions that has then been removed prior to MOT. That means boy racers with basic cars that enjoy low road tax who then modify them will get caught even if they refit standard parts for MOT as ECU will shop them to DVLA so they will be required to be inspected and put into higher road tax band.
Haven't heard any more about this so I suspect just a proposal.

Paul Humphries.

[aupickup]

if they do change taxation clas so we have to pay then i will pay it, dont like the idea of restricted miles radius

but then i did not get minors just for the free road tax anyway

they are easy to work on, get pretty good mpg
cheap to insure
reliable
fun to drive
good shows

etc

so i dont think we should moan about it

[paulhumphries]

if they do change taxation clas so we have to pay then i will pay it, dont like the idea of restricted miles radius

My opinion is what ever governement is in power will have learn their lesson with the current retrospective road tax fiasco and and mileage restriction would only apply to post '73 vehicles with earlier, pre 73, still being unlimited as at present.

Personally I'm keeping my fingers crossed as I have a '83 Land Rover and being limited to 20 radius wouldn't be a problem for 99% of my journeys with the other 1% being done in another vehicle.

What people forget is that in the past you paid road tax on everything - even if 50+ years old just the same as a brand new car

Paul Humphries

[ndevans]

I have said it before on this forum, I think they day will come when we will have to pay something. And I don't mind if it is applied in a fair manner. I also agree with Les-keep quiet about the tax free status-it winds up people who have spent large amounts of money on new cars that are less polluting but who have to pay road tax. But I think the day will come when it will be politically unnaceptable for a small group of road users to pay no road tax for their vehicles.

I hope tax-free status stays for pre-73 cars, for the following reasons:-

1 there aren't that many of them on the road
2 they tend to be well maintained
3 they don't tend to be driven harshly
4 they often are not "main cars", only getting used as secondary runabouts

Overall the environmental impact is overstated compared to the impact of the millions of modern cars being used for short trips to the shops every day, or being thrashed to the limits, or running on and on, with little or no maintenance. On my LEO run this year, I got 42mpg overall. If I had done the run in my 2003 Nissan Micra (1240 petrol) I would have got about 45mpg-not a gigantic increase in fuel economy over the Morris.

[aupickup]

and can also remember when road tax was so expensive you could buy it every 3 months

so road tax is quite cheap now compared with when i first started driving

and cut windows in a van to reduce teh amount of exise duty as well

[chrisd87]

There's nothing on the FBHVC website about this and I haven't heard it anywhere else, so would be inclined to think it's just speculation. This sort of thing tends to get dragged up once in a while and then forgotten when it is discovered that no such plans exist.

What I would say is that we shouldn't accept any restrictions or extra taxation at all, even if they do 'sound reasonable'. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile is particularly pertinent when it comes to the eco/tax brigade.

[Alec]

Hello ND,

it is a moot point if modern cars are less polluting.
The continual production of anything, be it a new car or an efficient washing machine cannot be less polluting? The item itself may perform better but obtaining the raw material, processing it, transport and assembly takes vast resources. In other words, manufacturing is pollution but of course, employment and wealth creation is also highly important. I just feel that the benefits of these modern cars are overstated as the whole picture is not taken into consideration.

To get back to the point of this post, I do use my classic as an everyday car, having never owned anything modern. It suits me, and would not for 99.99% of the rest of the population. Road tax is only expensive if the vehicle does a low mileage, as many Classics do. Fuel tax soon adds up as the miles go up.

Alec

[ndevans]

Alec, I agree entirely.

Even £440 is not much if you can afford a Range Rover in the first place, and afford £2000+ in fuel per year.

[Dean]

Why did they introduce free road tax for pre '73 cars in the first place? If we knew this then surely the same reason to keep it still applies.

[MoggyTech]

Why did they introduce free road tax for pre '73 cars in the first place? If we knew this then surely the same reason to keep it still applies.

They didn't. It was introduced by the Conservatives as a rolling 25 years exemption. It was the current clowns who froze it at pre 1973 cars.

[Packedup]

I currently have 5 cars (the pickup, a Triumph, a Midget, and two Metros). Admittedly at least two of those need to go, but that still leaves me with more than one. Why, when I can only drive one at a time, should I pay tax for each one? Never mind tax exemption for the pre 73 cars, where's my multi car discount? Insurance companies do a multi car discount, supermarkets work out cheaper if you buy multipacks, so why is there no bulk buy for car tax?

I'd be far happier seeing 1p per liter extra on fuel (for an average mileage of 12k per year that would work out roughly the same for the small engine tax band assuming approx 45mpg) and no road tax whatsoever. Thirsty cars and/ or those doing intergalactic mileages would pay more for the "environmental" (sorry if I don't buy into the CO2 is choking babies tales) damage and wear and tear on the roads, economical cars that do fewer miles would sensibly pay less. Pay per use has to be more fair than pay for something that if duplicated you can't be using at the same time.. Which is probably why it won't happen.

[Alec]

Hello Packedup,

it would be nice but taxation is not about being fair. Governments seem to be good at extracting money by all sorts of ways but not so good in spending it sensibly. It is far easier to collect than to ensure that we who contribute get value for money.

As a for instance, I visited my brother in law in hospital in Birmingham. Commendably they are building an addition to it. The first thing that struck me was that it's fundamental design was based on circles. Now to build a building based on circular plan aspect is both wasteful of space and far more expensive. Presumably this design was chosen to give a striking architectural facility, but surely that is losing sight of what is actually required. Build as simply as practical and spend more on the equipment and medical staff surely will give a better return on the money.

Alec