The UK; s unrelenting war on motorists continues – trap the poor into more and more energy poverty at a time of high interest rates
UK vehicle owners will pay a lot more for “Vehicle Excise Duty” starting on 1 April 2024. As with all “green” policies, the impact will be felt by the poor, forcing them to sell into a depressed market for their cars and buy much more expensive cars financed at the new far higher interest rates. Further trapping them into an indirect and repressive tax regime.
Get woke – or be forced to get work – go broke. Energy poverty caused by corruption I the field of science.
Remember, every “Net Zero” measure to prevent “climate change” is a lie, perpetrated by little green mental pygmies that run around like headless chicken littles.
THERE IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY
From here:
Vehicle Excise Duty rates for cars, vans and motorcycles from April 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
“This measure will uprate the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) rates for cars, vans, motorcycles and motorcycle trade licences by the Retail Prices Index (RPI). This is a standard uprating to come into effect from 1 April 2024.”
Note the use of the term “uprate” instead of “increase” and the use of RPI instead of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that is used to “uprate” benefits such as pensions and unemployment.
“Increasing VED rates by RPI in tax year 2024 to 2025 will ensure that VED receipts are maintained in real terms and that motorists make a fair contribution to the public finances.
“VED is a tax on vehicles used or kept on public roads and rates depend on the vehicle type, its characteristics such as emissions and its date of first registration. VED rates have increased in line with inflation since 2010.”
An emissions tax, which Londoners pay in addition to the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULE of £12.50 per day for non-compliant vehicles taxes and the “Congestion Charge” that all vehicles pay of £15/day between 0700 and 1800).
A quick detour into the vagaries of inflation calculations.
The UK measures inflation within a Consumer Price Index (CPI) and a Retail Price Index (RPI). It has also come up with another one that reflects changes to house prices, but that is not relevant here. The CPI is newer than the RPI and is applied to benefits like pensions, whereas the RPI is applied to taxes – like the VED.
In case you are wondering why, check this out:
From here:
Inflation and price indices - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
The latest UK CPI to November 2023 was 3.9% v 5.3% for UK RPI. Ok, so taxes increased at the RPI rate of 5.4% and benefits increased by the CPI of only 3.9% - a difference of 1.5% in the year to November 2023. Let’s look a little longer – the last 2-3 years.
The RPI has increased by 20.0% over the last two years to November 2023 and by 28.6% over the three years to November 2023,
Spreadsheet embedded here:
The CPI has increased by 15.0% over the last two years to November 2023 and by 20.9% over the three years to November 2023.
Data lifted from chart embedded here:
CPI ANNUAL RATE 00: ALL ITEMS 2015=100 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Now the difference is 5% over two years and almost 8% over three years. From memory, the RPI has averaged between 0.5% and 0.75% more than the CPI over decades – so, maybe 6-7.5% over a decade rather than three years.
You can check out all the different VED rates for vehicles registered after April 2017 here:
Vehicle tax rates: Cars registered on or after 1 April 2017 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Here’s a couple of tows (rates for the first year are different, the below rates are for subsequent years):
“Rates for second tax payment onwards
Those are rates for “run of the mill” cars. Note the zero charge for the road ripper uppers – “Electric” that have e caused massive problems with potholes on British roads.
Here are the rates for cars considered “luxury” with a value of £40,000 (50,000 bucks).
“You have to pay an extra £390 a year if you have a car or motorhome with a ‘list price’ of more than £40,000. You do not have to pay this if you have a zero emission vehicle.”
All those much heavier electric vehicles are playing merry hell with British roads I wonder how many manufacturers have dropped their list prices - or are now designing cars for new vehicles - to around £39,990? 390 pounds for five years is around 2,000 pounds – without being subject to RPI at the higher value of a vehicle.
There are around 1 million all-electric cars on the UK; s rad out of around 33 million cars I total for the UK’s population of 68 million. That’s a lot of voters being taxed to fund chicken little “faux science” net zero policies!
Expect the market for cars priced between 40,000 to 50,000 to disappear completely from the UK car market. Those who can afford 50,000 or more for a car are likely not to care, whilst those who ca only just afford 40,000 are unlikely to want to “step up”. Marginal buyers I that price bucket will opt for a huge drop in taxes and inflation. Nothing like a government dictating what prices operate in a free market, right?
Makes you wonder of that list price threshold of 40,000 is adjusted every year at the RPI or CPI, right?
Here’s an idea of the UK’s pothole problem from here:
New VED road tax rates for 2024/25 from 1 April (petebarden.co.uk)
“Standard road tax (VED) from 1 April, 2023 - 31 March, 2024
The vehicle excise duty increase by RPI, which is 10.1% is rounded to the nearest £1 or £5. Standard rate road tax (VED) has increased from £165 to £180.00.
First-year and 'luxury' car tax from 1 April, 2023 - 31 March, 2024
First year car tax has increase by around 10%, you can scroll down to see the new charges for first-year and all other categories of car tax.”
“The amount of road tax that you will have to pay depends entirely on how ‘green’ your car is – judged by the CO2 emissions that it pumps out of the exhaust pipe. See the bands below to match your car to a band.”
I wonder that some smart engineer hasn’t figured out how to capture vehicle exhausts In a compressed or “balloon filling” way – to deliver to “carbon sinks” of the governments or someone else’s making. That would put q cork in the pipe right?
I cannot see any annual rate of 10% for RPI over the last few years – there’s 13/5% for the year to March 2023 and 8/9% for the year to June 2023 – I might be missing an average annual RPI calculation.
The so-called 'luxury' car tax rate for vehicles costing £40,000+ increased from £335 to £390 on 1 April 2023.
Angry Brits blast new 2024 car tax changes as a bid to ‘fleece' drivers as ‘cash cows' (msn.com)
“Many called out the Government for not spending the money on fixing roads with potholes, a concern in many communities.”
“In November, Rishi Sunak pledged a staggering £8.3billion to tackle the "scourge of potholes" on UK roads after diverting funding which was set to be used on HS2.
But the AA has revealed pothole-related breakdowns were now at record levels with the breakdown group expecting to have attended over 600,000 incidents in 2023.”
Onwards!
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Luckily the inept Tories will be voted out, because of immigration, green theft and war mongering.
Unfortunately a much worse party will be voted in.
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