adjustment in motor tax charges

wazzoraybelle

It seems like a blunt instrument to increase the motor tax on vehicles above 1.6l. My partner drives a 1.9l (diesel) audi with regularly gets 55mpg while my Astra 1.4l (petrol) only manages about 40 mpg. Surely as emission levels are available for all vehicles it would be easy to levy an extra charge based on these instead of engine size.
Of course the best way to collect motor tax would be to abolish the annual charge and add a couple of cents to a litre of fuel.

Does anyone know why neither of these options are being considered??

Taildragon

I agree that this would be a far more equitable way to tax motoring. Wasn't this tried in the early 80's?? I have a vague recollection that car "tax" was reduced to zero, and a levy was put on petrol & diesel (by FG?). The next government (FF?) started charging once again for car tax but "forgot" to remove the levy

Somebody with a better memory for political machinations may recall...

As for implementing it today, the impact on inflation could be a political issue, I think.

mike65

Car tax was cut to 5 pounds in 1977 and fuel tax increased, then they put the motor tax back to where it was only more so.

Mike

Taildragon

Thank you Mike, I hadn't realised that it went that far back (car ownership wasn't on my agenda in 1977 ) £5 would have been a significant chunk of the average working wage back then.

mike65

5 a year! (average income about 3000 a year)

Flipping giveaway it was, designed to get FF elected. It worked.

Mike.

wazzoraybelle

surely the greens would know the difference between engine size and emissions?

mike65

They do, but it suits them to both rake in some extra cash and be seen to be green.

The whole things a sham, like a 1.6 engine could be considered somehow big and bad.


Mike.

Taildragon

wazzoraybelle wrote: »

surely the greens would know the difference between engine size and emissions?

You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? :rolleyes:

As your partner's car is an Audi, it's one of the easier cars to convert to running on vegetable oil. Have you considered that? The cost savings should offset the extra tax

I don't know where you are located, so don't know if there's a distributor near you. I fill up at GreatGas stations (head office in Cork I think?). If you dig around on the Revenue web site, they have a list of distributors throughout the country.

HTH

wazzoraybelle

Taildragon wrote: »

You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? :rolleyes:

As your partner's car is an Audi, it's one of the easier cars to convert to running on vegetable oil. Have you considered that? The cost savings should offset the extra tax

I don't know where you are located, so don't know if there's a distributor near you. I fill up at GreatGas stations (head office in Cork I think?). If you dig around on the Revenue web site, they have a list of distributors throughout the country.

HTH

I'm in East Cork, and we've thought about converting, but next year we plan tostart making eco-diesel from waste v. oil to run our central heating and run a genny as well as our vehicles so a conversion shouldn't be neccessary for the audi ( maybe a couple of washers and lines replaced). I have a great gas station nearby but I've never seen veg oil there. Is that anew thing??

Taildragon

I think GreatGas started retailing PPO in 2005, I first bought it at their Ballyhea outlet (the nearest one to me) in April/May 2006. AFAIK GreatGas is a franchise brand, I *think* they get their PPO from Eilish Oils There's some info here:

http://www.hippo.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27

Useful info here too:

http://www.biofuelsfortransport.ie/faq.asp
http://www.eilishoils.com/pages/pre_enq.htm

Running a CH boiler on PPO should be relatively straighforward, but I haven't tried it myself yet. I recently acquired a CH burner unit with a failed fuel pump, so that experiment is very much on my "to-do" list once I repair the pump. As for fuelling a genset, once again it should be do-able, depends on the engine/fuel system. Low tech is better!

wazzoraybelle

[QUOTE=
Low tech is better![/QUOTE]

We did look at the veg oil route but figure the layout required for making bio diesel was pretty much equivalent to converting our vehicles ( we have 4) to take plant oil. We would also be more flexible in changing our vehicles in the future as well as using our existing ch burner. More importantly waste veg oil is pretty much free and in plentiful supply.
Thanks for the info, I don't think my local great gas has ppo. What's the price/litre near you??