Classic Car Tax

romperstomper

Hi guys,

Where can I get information on classic car tax? I have just gotten an 'old' 1988 300S but was told I need to wait until next year to tax it as a classic (otherwise I pay the horrendous tax rates that we normally charge for 3 litre cars).

Got some quotes of between 350 - 680 for fully comp insurance (27 yr old M), I thought that was ok but what do you guys reckon?

Thanks

Blue850

You won't get classic tax or NCT exemption until 2018 when its 30 years old, you'll probably get classic insurance next year when its 20 years old but you'll need another car as your daily drive.

romperstomper

have another vehicle as my primary and another as secondary so this would actually be the third vehicle. so NO tax reduction until its 30 years old? thats ridiculous. the tax on that beast is 1300. is there nothing I can do when its twenty years old to apply for reduced tax?

Dades

You can get the rates here:

https://www.motortax.ie/mtoapp/welcome.do

As Blue850 says, classic tax (€42) is only available for cars over 30 yrs old from their actual date of first registration.

Insurance sounds cheap though, so enjoy the old barge!

EDIT:

If it's a 3.0 litre, then the tax is €1,109, no?

romperstomper

it would be if it still had the original engine. old engine packed in 4 years ago with 286K miles on the clock, its now got an engine from a S class '95 3.2L with 35K miles on the clock, resprayed , wheels refurbed, new interior etc. For all intents and purposes its a pretty new car. Its a shame to not drive this gorgeous bus but 1343 in tax is enough to make me puke (already paying insurance and tax on another car and a bike)

8~)

I don't know where all the misinformation comes from about 'vintage' tax being 15, 20, 25 or whatever years. It's 30 and has been for as long as I can remember.

Maybe it's the sellers and traders? I see so many ads claiming classic tax/insurance on cars that just don't qualify...

1300 is pukeworthy though. In effect, what it does is to ensure that many large cars get scrapped or mothballed once they get to around 10 years old.

Dades

8~) wrote:

I don't know where all the misinformation comes from about 'vintage' tax being 15, 20, 25 or whatever years. It's 30 and has been for as long as I can remember.

I'm sure it's to do with insurance.

When people think classic cars they think cheap insurance. People always ask me how cheap my insurance is, and when the cut-off date is - circa 20 years. They don't ask about tax usually. Most people then don't realise the real saving is in the tax/VRT areas, and when they first discover it assume the 20 year rule applies similar to insurance.

Oshbosh

is there any reduction if the car is converterd to run on LPG or other eco-friendly fuel ?

Esel

Oshbosh wrote:

is there any reduction if the car is converterd to run on LPG or other eco-friendly fuel ?

No.

Mc-BigE

if its a second car you could always tax it for 3 months? not much of a solution i know but its better than 12months.

only_sideways

There was talk of scrapping the present system and adding a few cent to the L, that way your rate of tax is determined directly by the amount of driving you do. The system would possibly be fazed in over 10 years. how that would work i'm not sure, but i'd welcome the idea, what with a total of 11.7L sitting outside my house. By doing this, the govt. would be able to tax ALL cars on Irish roads, not just the ones registered here and we could collect cars to our hearts content and only pay tax as we use them

mike65

Its the only solution and is so obvious and cheap to administer it'll never happen.

Mike.

junkyard

only_sideways wrote:

There was talk of scrapping the present system and adding a few cent to the L, that way your rate of tax is determined directly by the amount of driving you do. The system would possibly be fazed in over 10 years. how that would work i'm not sure, but i'd welcome the idea, what with a total of 11.7L sitting outside my house. By doing this, the govt. would be able to tax ALL cars on Irish roads, not just the ones registered here and we could collect cars to our hearts content and only pay tax as we use them

It would be a great idea but could you honestly see our government implementing it in our favor? Those thieves are robbing us as it is with the price of petrol and are making a fortune out of seizing, impounding and fining motorists who don't have their cars taxed. Between fines and taxes I'd go so far as to say that the revenue generated from the motorist, in every aspect, is running this country or at the very least contributing a fortune to it. Change for our better will never happen.

Dades

junkyard wrote:

Change for our better will never happen.

I wouldn't see it as change in our favour (classic drivers at least). The biggest savings for a lot of classic is the €42 tax. That and a lot more would be added to your petrol bill. Classics would lose one of their big benefits, become unpopular due to poor mpg and the amount of them we'd see on the road would diminish.

green-blood

but only if you use that 7 litre lump of Detroit everyday for teh commute to Dublin from bogger-ville !!!

Most classics are second/third cars and have low mileage over all, so no reall loss.

we need to keep a small registration tax, 50 quid a year, fo your disc, its teh best way of enforcing insurance. We have a problem with iuninsured drivers here, but not a patch on what the uk have.

Dades

green-blood wrote:

but only if you use that 7 litre lump of Detroit everyday for teh commute to Dublin from bogger-ville !!!

Perhaps then it's fair to say that classic daily-drivers are the threatened ones.
I for one would like to see more rather than less of them.

8~)

Ah, I dunno - I think in general classic daily drivers are reasonable fuel users, not absolute monsters. Most you see a sub 3 litre Mercedes', MGs, Lotus Elans and the like.

Very few people will use a 3 litre + as a daily driver because already the fuel cost is prohibitive. I used a 4.2 Daimler as a daily driver for about a month... couldn't keep fuel in it.