A crazy thought, but............

sogood · 10-11-2014 6:26pm #1

I drive a 4.0 litre car and as you can imagine, the annual motor tax is no fun, but that's my choice and the price I have to pay. I like big engines and often look at such cars for sale, but taxing two of them would be too much. So, I got to thinking, given that you can only physically drive one car at a time, you'd always be paying tax on a car you aren't using.

So, imagine a scenario where you have two big cars, with one tax disc, paying the maximum amount applicable. This disc could display the reg of both cars and you would simply transfer the disc from car to car, depending upon which one you are driving.

The other car would have to remain parked, as there would be no disc displayed on it.

So, another luxobarge is saved from the scrapper.

And yes, I can dream here just as easily as in bed, but it's just a thought.

joujoujou · 10-11-2014 6:31pm

Very good idea, but it'll never come to real life. Not in this country. Revenue's too greedy.

seamus · 10-11-2014 6:33pm

An individual can only physically drive one car at a time, but you can own more than one car on the road at any one time

Your idea makes sense, but how do you police it? Plenty of people already chance their arm driving around with no tax disc, what would stop someone from doing the same - have two cars, pay tax on one and let your partner drive the other. "Oh, I forgot to transfer the disc from my other car, the reg is <...>". Catching evaders would be basically impossible, every two-car household would pull this stroke.

MuppetCheck · 10-11-2014 6:33pm

Would ya get out of it with your common sense.

mickdw · 10-11-2014 6:51pm

A pay per use sms or similar system will zero tolerance would be a nice system. Make an application once to place your car on the pay per use system then pay for a day, weekend or week as required. Basically, the 1800 tax rate is 5 quid per day.
They could charge 7.50 for a single day, moving toward 5 quid per day for longer periods. Large fines for those abusing the system.

Interslice · 10-11-2014 7:28pm

mickdw wrote: »

A pay per use sms or similar system will zero tolerance would be a nice system. Make an application once to place your car on the pay per use system then pay for a day, weekend or week as required. Basically, the 1800 tax rate is 5 quid per day.
They could charge 7.50 for a single day, moving toward 5 quid per day for longer periods. Large fines for those abusing the system.

To complicated to police. Simply tax the driver or tax the fuel. Never going to happen anyway, unless revolution starts...

biko · 10-11-2014 7:32pm

"I left my disc in the other car.."

Also, the other car could be used by someone else.

I like the theory but in practice it wouldn't work.

Voodoomelon · 10-11-2014 7:41pm

I paid my €1809 on Saturday, I felt physically sick. Still better than paying €500 a quarter though.

bazz26 · 10-11-2014 8:02pm

Unfortunately motor tax is deemed an ownership tax rather than a usage tax, same could be done with property tax on holiday homes, only pay it for the time you actually spend living in it as opposed to having to pay for owning it.

mickdw · 10-11-2014 9:20pm

bazz26 wrote: »

Unfortunately motor tax is deemed an ownership tax rather than a usage tax, same could be done with property tax on holiday homes, only pay it for the time you actually spend living in it as opposed to having to pay for owning it.

I don't get your thinking on that . We have the sord system where you declare the car off the road and do not legally have to pay motortax in that situation. That clearly shows its a usage tax as the off road declaration had no bearing on ownership.

visual · 10-11-2014 10:37pm

Better system would be a fair and reasonable motor tax and do away with all the nonsense of CC vs CO2

bop1977 · 10-11-2014 11:29pm

I know a guy who had two supra's. Both were the same colour, same year. one of them was the twin turbo version and the other was the n/a version.

His solution was to tax one of them and put the same plates on both of them and move the tax and insurance discs between the two cars.

Obviously what he did was totally illegal and he new as much.

seamus · 11-11-2014 10:55am

visual wrote: »

Better system would be a fair and reasonable motor tax and do away with all the nonsense of CC vs CO2

The only fair system is tax directly on fuel and no motor tax.

So if someone wants ten 5-litre monsters in their garage, they can do so without having to pay €10k+ in tax every year for cars which do less than 1,000km collectively.

I'm surprised this isn't something SIMI lobby for tbh. This would be a shot in the arm for the motor trade as people won't be afraid to spend a little extra up front once they know there's no huge tax bill every year. Might even put an end to the curse of the paddy spec.

Mar4ix · 11-11-2014 1:14pm

similar nonsense with insurance, as if I have two cars, for one car I have 5 years no claim bonus, but to insure second car, i have to start with 0 NCB ... aka, when sit in to second car, loose all my driving experience

:pac:

Obviously tax and insurance here is just to get money off the people.

In my opinion, put roadtax in to fuel price is most reasonably for people, but .. ehh... nobody cares people ...

sogood · 11-11-2014 7:50pm

biko wrote: »

"I left my disc in the other car.."
Also, the other car could be used by someone else.

I like the theory but in practice it wouldn't work.

I know what you mean, it's just a pipe dream and of course, it would be open to abuse, to a degree, just like anything else. I was thinking in terms of the luxobarge, maybe a minimum of twenty years old as being eligible. So, if you fancy a big motor, you but it, tax it and use your daily driver as your second car. You would be taxing the bigger engined car at the appropriate rate.

Personally, I'm in favour of an extra tax on petrol to cover road tax, so, tax for usage rather than ownership, but that has been discussed at length, and as a possible, common sense workable alternative to the present system, it will of course,never be implemented.

Markcheese · 11-11-2014 7:59pm

seamus wrote: »

The only fair system is tax directly on fuel and no motor tax.

So if someone wants ten 5-litre monsters in their garage, they can do so without having to pay €10k+ in tax every year for cars which do less than 1,000km collectively.

I'm surprised this isn't something SIMI lobby for tbh. This would be a shot in the arm for the motor trade as people won't be afraid to spend a little extra up front once they know there's no huge tax bill every year. Might even put an end to the curse of the paddy spec.

Pretty much have to be done on an all island basis-can you imagine how much fuel laundering and smuggling there'd be?? What would you do about diesel for haulage versus private car/ light commercials ?

Bruthal · 11-11-2014 9:01pm

bazz26 wrote: »

Unfortunately motor tax is deemed an ownership tax rather than a usage tax,

Its not really deemed anything. They simply extort* tax for having the use of a car in the form of motor tax, and then tax the actual usage itself via fuel.

*Extortion because of the rip of rates

A crazy thought, but............

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