High tax and why it's paid?

CianRyan

This stemmed from a discussion in the bangernomics thread, my view is that a real enthusiast will find a way to pay for what he wants (within his means) where as someone with an interest that's not as strong will tend to settle for less in turn of giving up the drink, etc.

In my initial post I said a real petrol head will pay big bucks and if you don't, you're not one. This was a bit misworded and I hope the above has amended that.

RoverJames wrote: »

What I don't agree with is your summary of the difference between a real petrol head and someone with just an interest in cars as you put it. Old tax system no car is over 2k to tax.

As above, I used the wrong words and again, I think. "within their means" was a big one to leave out.

The point I'm really stressing though is that if there's a way of obtaining what you want and you decide not to fallow through with that, will this not make you less of an enthusiast as someone that will make that sacrifice?

Tragedy

Perhaps you can tell us what paying high motor tax has to do with being an enthusiast when you're paying €1,000+ p.a. to tax a car.

Hint: tax/money/what car you drive has nothing to do with how enthusiastic you are about cars.

Atlantic Dawn

The €1650 odd is a large sum of money to be paying in tax yes but there's plenty of people blowing their money in what I would see as less productive means. For instance a 1 pack a day smoker will spend double that a year on their habit.

George Dalton

Speaking as someone who pays "high tax" (€1251 P.A.) and would consider themeselves a true enthusiast, I must say it is getting harder and harder to justify.

It's not about the actual amount of money, it's the patently ridiculous motor tax system that we have in this country that makes my tax cost particularly hard to swallow.

mik_da_man

I'd agree.
I pay a similar amount and its just going to keep increasing.
I'd love to get a second cat but spending 2k on a car and then 1600 pa to tax does not make much financial sense.

you can be an enthusiast but at some point common sense has to come into play. Unless you have a great amount of disposable income....

mickdw

I would tend to agree with op. I haven't gone the high tax route myself but I don't think its an amount that will stop someone who really wants a certain from getting it.
It does however stop 90% of those who would like a large engined car as a weekend car from getting it and that is a bit crap.

ShadowHearth

Tax is a curse of this island. I heard it was invented by the old gods and people still afraid of their vengeance, so they still pay it.

I am petrolhead, but the reason skyline went offroad and them was sold, was the stupid amount of money going on it. I don't even mind paying petrol bills, but drop another grand on top of it, just for luxury of 2.5 and you get in to position where you work just to pay your car bills.
I still petrolhead, but I will put my own well being first this time. You don't need to be spending 80% of your wages on car to be a petrolhead.

barura

Isn't the tax relative to the amount of engine you have?

Now its changed. In fact, while thinking of getting a 2000~ BMW estate there, crunching the numbers, if I buy one from 2008 and own it for a while, the saving in tax on the new system makes it worthwhile if I keep it for 4 years.

It makes sense for some cars to actually buy new(er), and since it won't be going anywhere (you know, since you buy a car for a couple of years right, we're not thinking like we used to about changing a car every year are we?) for a while, regular maintenance etc would leave you with a better experience in the long term and more reliability. Going by age alone, that is.

Having said that, some cars you can't get anymore that people want to drive, I can see the appeal, but day to day stuff, it's actually getting silly.

Anan1

CianRyan wrote: »

As above, I used the wrong words and again, I think. "within their means" was a big one to leave out.

The point I'm really stressing though is that if there's a way of obtaining what you want and you decide not to fallow through with that, will this not make you less of an enthusiast as someone that will make that sacrifice?

A real enthusiast knows that you don't need to spend more to get more.:)

Bohrio

I personally think tax is beyond ridiculous in this country. For example, i use my car some weekends, most of the time is parked in the garage, Last month i did 300km, that has been my average since january, still, i im paying 442 euro every three months, im finding it harder and harder so justify tbh. There isnt much difference between aying 1600 per years to 800, at least not much, where im from i use to pay 150 euro per year for a similar type of car... but things are different here, i feel i am being ripped off

dahamsta

mik_da_man wrote: »

I'd love to get a second cat but spending 2k on a car and then 1600 pa to tax does not make much financial sense.

I'd suggest buying the cat a cheaper car with a smaller engine. My Tiddles has a Purrgeot 205 GTi and he loves it.

CianRyan

It's true you can buy a car in a lower tax bracket and have as much fun, I never argued that, what I'm saying is that if you're after say, a Mustang and you decide that you'd rather smoke and drink for the year and complain about not being able to afford the tax on the yoke, then which are you more enthusiastic about, cars or smoking and drinking.

I've also said within one's means, which seem to be getting ignored.

Alanstrainor

High tax has given us the chance to buy incredible cars for peanuts these days, if our tax system wasn't the way it is, buying 740i's for a grand just wouldn't happen.

I'm not happy paying 1005 a year on it, well to say I'm not happy would be an understatement! But for me, I had the chance, and the cash to buy a dream car so I went for it.

Bohrio

Alanstrainor wrote: »

High tax has given us the chance to buy incredible cars for peanuts these days, if our tax system wasn't the way it is, buying 740i's for a grand just wouldn't happen.

I'm not happy paying 1005 a year on it, well to say I'm not happy would be an understatement! But for me, I had the chance, and the cash to buy a dream car so I went for it.

Could be, but for example, cars are cheaper in the uk and tax is not as expensive as it is in Ireland

Gumbo

As mentioned above, if it wasnt for the looney tax system here, i'd have a 545i or 750iL by now D

currently paying 1390 on my 530d but every month that passes i get closer to going back to a 2.0 car where the tax actually seems cheap

dahamsta

Alanstrainor wrote: »

High tax has given us the chance to buy incredible cars for peanuts these days, if our tax system wasn't the way it is, buying 740i's for a grand just wouldn't happen.

I'm not happy paying 1005 a year on it, well to say I'm not happy would be an understatement! But for me, I had the chance, and the cash to buy a dream car so I went for it.

This. Sums it up perfectly. Why do people think 100 grand cars can be picked up for just 5 or 10 a decade later for feck's sake?

Like I said in the other thread, I dropped 2.5k on tax on my 7 in 18 months. Add in insurance, petrol and servicing/repairs and I'm well north of a 5 grand, more than the car cost. It was worth every single penny.

Caseywhale

I have a mate who has a serious car fetish. He actually moved to the UK for the sole reason that he wanted to keep his collection of large engined cars.

dr.fuzzenstein

Just get a car with vintage/classic tax on it, engine as big as you want for E40 a year.

dahamsta

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Vintage sellers in Ireland think that their cars are made of gold, and price accordingly. And repairs are more expensive, because parts aren't available. And finally, storage is a problem.

Don't get me wrong, I'll have a classic myself some day. But it's definitely not 1 + 1 = fun. It invariably works out more expensive than a barge.

christmas2012

smaller cars = smaller tax,i cant understand why anybody would bother with a bus like car mercedes or otherwise,it just seems pointless,youre driving around wasting buckets of money..

Bohrio

christmas2012 wrote: »

smaller cars = smaller tax,i cant understand why anybody would bother with a bus like car mercedes or otherwise,it just seems pointless,youre driving around wasting buckets of money..

Well that depnds, my 2.0 tuned up imprezza did 18 l per 100 km on average, my 4.2 rs4 does 12.5

I still think is rididulous to pay 800 euro for a 2.0 if your gonna do 300 km per month

Tragedy

dahamsta wrote: »

This. Sums it up perfectly. Why do people think 100 grand cars can be picked up for just 5 or 10 a decade later for feck's sake?

Like I said in the other thread, I dropped 2.5k on tax on my 7 in 18 months. Add in insurance, petrol and servicing/repairs and I'm well north of a 5 grand, more than the car cost. It was worth every single penny.

Strange that big engined cars(3l+) aren't that much more expensive in the UK so.

As someone who uses Pistonheads more than Motors, the fact that their tax is only 33-50% of ours doesn't mean their attitude to high tax cars is even one little bit different.

Regularly see enthusiasts railing against paying £465 p.a. tax on cars over there, even though that doesn't cover a 1.9l diesel pre 2008 over here.

Tax is dead money, people don't like paying dead money.

ShadowHearth

christmas2012 wrote: »

smaller cars = smaller tax,i cant understand why anybody would bother with a bus like car mercedes or otherwise,it just seems pointless,youre driving around wasting buckets of money..

wtf are you doing in car forum? door is there, thank you!

ShadowHearth

ShadowHearth wrote: »

wtf are you doing in car forum? ...........

Folks who see the financial benefit in running a small car are equally entitled to splash their opinion around a motors forum

dahamsta

Tragedy wrote: »

Strange that big engined cars(3l+) aren't that much more expensive in the UK so.

It's not strange at all, it's Economics 101: Economies of Scale.

It's also apples and oranges, given that our retards in charge thought that two motor tax systems running in parallel would be the bees knees, with some horses of cars running cheaper tax than supermarket commuters. And a bastard child tax setup on the way, by all accounts.

Like everything in this world, there's rarely one reason for anything. /Some/ reasons have been proffered here. We're not preaching gospel.

el sorcerino

Well I'm a petrol head to some extent but I know there are more devoted petrol heads than me out there but i disagree with the notion that 'you're not a petrol head if you don't find the means to drive what car you want'.

After 4 years in an M3 the concept of paying another 1600 in tax or 444 every 3 months eventually broke me. Personally i found the whole ridiculous Irish motor tax issue too much to justify.

When you factor in insurance, petrol, maintenance etc, It's hard to hand over that much money on tax... especially when our neighbours across the water are paying £400 to drive a lamborghini.

I guess my point is that it's very hard to be enthusiastic about motoring here in 'the nanny state', and I place our motor tax system on top of the pyramid of reasons for this!

dahamsta

dahamsta wrote: »

...........

It's also apples and oranges, given that our retards in charge thought that two motor tax systems running in parallel would be the bees knees, with some horses of cars running cheaper tax than supermarket commuters. And a bastard child tax setup on the way, by all accounts.............

What's that ?

dahamsta

There was a thread about it here recently, kite-flying from the incumbents about another system, (purportedly) because they're losing so much revenue on the CO2 system. On mobile, can't find it right now.

Tragedy

dahamsta wrote: »

It's not strange at all, it's Economics 101: Economies of Scale.

It's also apples and oranges, given that our retards in charge thought that two motor tax systems running in parallel would be the bees knees, with some horses of cars running cheaper tax than supermarket commuters. And a bastard child tax setup on the way, by all accounts.

Like everything in this world, there's rarely one reason for anything. /Some/ reasons have been proffered here. We're not preaching gospel.

That makes no sense. Do you know what economies of scale means? The concept of economies of scale is that the more you make of something the cheaper it becomes.

That has s.f.a to do with UK having comparably cheap motor tax but large engines cars still depreciate almost as much as Irish cars (with exceptions either way).

Bearcat

I too am throwing in the towel....have an old 911 post 1980 paying installments of 400euro plus every 4 months to see it most of the time in a garage.....dead money. It's going back to the uk soon. The decimation of decent cars in this country will there to see in the next 5-10yrs where the max engine size you'll see in the 2nd hand car market is 2.0litres and most if all being oil burners.

Henry Ford III

Yet another "I bought a big engined car cheap (because it has high motor tax), but now I'm unhappy paying the high motor tax" thread.

You can't have it every way.

Jimbob 83

What i see is in afew years when the majority of cars are on the new tax system something changing as the golden goose will have stopped laying it's eggs.

Sobanek

Tragedy wrote: »

That makes no sense. Do you know what economies of scale means? The concept of economies of scale is that the more you make of something the cheaper it becomes.

That has s.f.a to do with UK having comparably cheap motor tax but large engines cars still depreciate almost as much as Irish cars (with exceptions either way).

"As the output increases, the cost per unit decreases as fixed costs are spread over a larger amount of units."

Got full marks in my Business mock on this definition

Stealthirl

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I am petrolhead, but the reason skyline went offroad and them was sold, was the stupid amount of money going on it. I don't even mind paying petrol bills, but drop another grand on top of it, just for luxury of 2.5 and you get in to position where you work just to pay your car bills.
I still petrolhead, but I will put my own well being first this time. You don't need to be spending 80% of your wages on car to be a petrolhead.

I agree and was/am in the same boat.
I drove the soarer everyday,allways had it taxed for the year ect,i was spending over a third of my wage on it every month.
If there was some way of taxing a car weekend use only for say €400 a year i would drive it agen and dam the cost of petrol ect.
I wont sell it as to me its worth more then the €1500 at best id get for seling it.
Plan is to see about clasic cover next year and tax it for 3 months in the summer.do this every year till 2023 and ill have a clasic in hopefully VGC that i know the history of

Big Nasty

I fcukin' hate paying the tax on my car. €1683 a year or €475 a quarter if you pay it that way, i.e. €160 a month. I almost sold the 7er last month because of it.

Just last week I was sitting in traffic behind a 'spanking' new 12 D Yaris and I thought to myself: Eh, fcuk that sh1t!

Also the 12 - D - Fulloplastic - Yaris will depreciate more each year than the amount I pay in motor tax. I know where I'd rather be!

166man

My take on this whole tax thing is kind of an extension of a previous posters post. If you take a BMW 740i for example, right now you can get a nice one for say €2k euro with the tax being €1600 or whatever it is.

If tomorrow the road tax became €500 for example, I'm sure that it's safe to say that demand for a BMW 740i would increase and according to the supply/demand theory this would therefore drive prices upwards. You might see dealers raising the price by €1000 as demand for these cars increases. Tax it for a year and you're suddenly at the same point you were before the tax was lowered.

I should point out that there are many thousands of variables to this example and of course the fuel prices and issue of time will come into the equation but to sum it up, raise the tax and the price of the good will fall due to lesser demand, but decrease the tax and price will rise due to increase in demand for the good.

It works both ways: High tax = Low price
Low tax = Higher price.

If I was buying one of these luxobarges tomorrow I would try and do what one of the mods did on here which was to find a mint BMW well below his budget and incorporate the road tax into the price of the car making it slightly less unbearable.

dgt

Hight tax means I have some unusual cars for someone my age, all bought for peanuts

But to pay the tax for a year is impossible for me!

Alas, the older stuff is nearing the 30 year mark and that's when they'll be taxed.

You don't need to pay big tax to have a fun car

Owen

Tragedy wrote: »

Tax is dead money, people don't like paying dead money.

QFT.

I have a friend who does some work for one of the toll companies, and a disportionately high amount of cars going through the tolls are untaxed. People just see it as a dead money, and put the money into putting food on the table, etc.

This Government should by rights implement a max of 1k tax, and for a 2 litre have it at 400 ish for the year. People would be more inclined to pay if they can afford it in the first place and I believe it would all balance out in the end.

[Queue inevitable backlash of 'if you can't afford to run the car, change it' - despite that being much more expensive to do than actually taxing the car]

Hunter21

On another note Im currently selling my 3.2 litre Bmw M3 for 3500 as I want a change and the amount of people that text me and say oh "I'll give you 2k cash tonight, because tax is dear in it and its thirsty"


Moral of the story- some fools think they can still live a high lifestyle; live beyond their means by buying cars they cant afford to tax or put fuel in them.

Im glad tax is high as it stops some clowns buying them- killing themselves and others due to the power of some big CC cars.

Bohrio

Why people keep saying that the reason why you cant afford a big engine car is tax?

TBH the least of my concerns when i drive my car is tax, when i was planning in buying one, what i considered was tyres, maintainance, mpg, reliability, etc... i couldnt care about the difference betwwen a 2.0 amd a 5.0, thats a difference on 800 euro.

What i think is unfair is this country seems by far, the most expensive taxwise, and i dont see where is that money going tbh, same as the vrt money etc... i feel they are just ripping people off

Voodoomelon

Whatever about the old system being a rip off, if you wanted to get a post 2008 V8 or V12, even second hand, you'll be royaly taken up the rear. €2100 a year?!

I don't care how wealthy you are, that's a ridiculous amount of money to be handing over every year and extremely difficult to justify considering the amount of VAT and VRT the original owner paid.

Conor_M1990

Move to an Island 95 euro per ammum problem Solved

Tragedy

Bohrio wrote: »

Why people keep saying that the reason why you cant afford a big engine car is tax?

TBH the least of my concerns when i drive my car is tax, when i was planning in buying one, what i considered was tyres, maintainance, mpg, reliability, etc... i couldnt care about the difference betwwen a 2.0 amd a 5.0, thats a difference on 800 euro.

What i think is unfair is this country seems by far, the most expensive taxwise, and i dont see where is that money going tbh, same as the vrt money etc... i feel they are just ripping people off

Spending money on fuel = I used fuel hooning around mountain roads late at night with the windows down enjoying the visceral thrill that is driving a car.

Spending money on tyres = New rubber, I get to feel how tight the steering is and my car feels demonstrably better.

Spending money on tax = ....permission to drive your car on the roads.

Spending money on something physical is much easier to justify than spending money on something that doesn't exist, hence why people are tax averse even when they can afford it.

Bohrio

Tragedy wrote: »

Spending money on fuel = I used fuel hooning around mountain roads late at night with the windows down enjoying the visceral thrill that is driving a car.

Spending money on tyres = New rubber, I get to feel how tight the steering is and my car feels demonstrably better.

Spending money on tax = ....permission to drive your car on the roads.

Spending money on something physical is much easier to justify than spending money on something that doesn't exist, hence why people are tax averse even when they can afford it.

True!

I will put another example, when I was looking to buying a car I loooked into buying a nissan GTR, they were selling for around 40 k in the UK and around 100K here, when I looked at how much VRT, etc I had to pay it turned out that I would have to paid more than what I paid for the car? (funny enough to match the selling price here in Ireland)

Even if I had all the money in the world I would feel it was wrong to pay it. For that kind of money I could buy an apartment in UK and register the car there!!!

Is not paying something that doesnt exist but not understanding why we are paying so much compared to other countries in the EU. I hate that, is like when I go to the supermarket to buy fish, tuna cost around 6 euro per kilo in Spain, here its around 27 euro/kilo. This is applicable to meat as well, but the worst thing is that no matter where I go (unless I go to, for example, the harbour) it is always the same price, probably because every butcher in Ireland has pre agreed to sell it at that price...

I kinda understand tobacco being twice as expensive as Spain, Portugal, as we know smoking kills so it is a way of putting people off (or is it a way to take advantage of someone with an addiction?)...

This is what bothers, at least, me. Lost money to a dead cause... I wonder how things are in other countries such as Germany (Spain is probably not a model of perfect economy)...