Monthly road tax payments idea rejected

bear1

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/monthly-instalments-for-motor-tax-ruled-out-464990.html

An idea popped up to allow motorists to pay their motor tax rates in installments.
Granted the idea wouldn't make much sense for those on the co2 rates but could have been great for those on cc.
At the same time I can sort of see why the idea was rejected, someone could easily get the year disc and stop paying and then re-sell the car to clear the tax.
Unless they would take it directly from your wages...
Still a pity that nothing will be done for those on the cc rate.

worded

bear1 wrote: »

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/monthly-instalments-for-motor-tax-ruled-out-464990.html

An idea popped up to allow motorists to pay their motor tax rates in installments.
Granted the idea wouldn't make much sense for those on the co2 rates but could have been great for those on cc.
At the same time I can sort of see why the idea was rejected, someone could easily get the year disc and stop paying and then re-sell the car to clear the tax.
Unless they would take it directly from your wages...
Still a pity that nothing will be done for those on the cc rate.

What’s the problem sending a new road tax disk every month?
It costs more to tax a car in anything less than a year, it cost money to not have money

It’s a rip off and they want to keep ripping people off

Atlantic Dawn

A better initial step would be having the quarterly, half yearly and 9 month tax discs at the very same rate as the annual tax.

beauf

They just have an online account linked to your reg. Then the cops could scan it as you drive by.

Probably save millions in printing cost and allow automatic fines.

CalamariFritti

worded wrote: »

What’s the problem sending a new road tax disk every month?
It costs more to tax a car in anything less than a year, it cost money to not have money

It’s a rip off and they want to keep ripping people off

The obvious problem is the administration overhead. For which you’d have to charge extra. Which would not make it a very attractive option. You’re already paying over 10% more for paying quarterly. For monthly you’d have to charge 20% more I imagine.

Then you have the people who simply ‘forget’.

I’m not saying it couldn’t be done but not with the current system. An overhaul would be required or else it would be a nightmare for everyone but the guys who think tax is optional.

At the end of the day owning a car is not an entitlement. If you can’t afford one then you can’t. Take the bus.

Agricola

beauf wrote: »

They just have an online account linked to your reg. Then the cops could scan it as you drive by.

Probably save millions in printing cost and allow automatic fines.

What would motor tax office employees all over the country do then!?

Good point made about stopping the sheer ripoff that is charging people to pay by quarter or the half as opposed to the full year. The CC system is extortionate and that is just adding insult to injury.

CalamariFritti wrote: »

At the end of the day owning a car is not an entitlement. If you can’t afford one then you can’t. Take the bus.

What bullshít. Have you ever been outside Dublin? Or whatever urban setting you obviously live in. For a huge percentage of the population, car ownership is as necessary as running water and electricity.

Del2005

Agricola wrote: »

What bullshít. Have you ever been outside Dublin? Or whatever urban setting you obviously live in. For a huge percentage of the population, car ownership is as necessary as running water and electricity.

That's because of the person's, or more correctly peoples, choice to live in a house that can't be served by public transport. If you choose to live miles from your neighbours then it's your problem to solve your transport needs not anyone else's. So the car is only essential because people choose to live that way.

Titzon Toast

Del2005 wrote: »

That's because of the person's, or more correctly peoples, choice to live in a house that can't be served by public transport. If you choose to live miles from your neighbours then it's your problem to solve your transport needs not anyone else's. So the car is only essential because people choose to live that way.

Pull your head out of the sand please.

CalamariFritti

Ok the way i worded it seems a bit harsh to you but what’s the alternative? Are we saying people living in rural areas should be allowed a car regardless whether they can afford one or tax or insurance?

Skatedude

Del2005 wrote: »

That's because of the person's, or more correctly peoples, choice to live in a house that can't be served by public transport. If you choose to live miles from your neighbours then it's your problem to solve your transport needs not anyone else's. So the car is only essential because people choose to live that way.

Choice?You live where you can afford which is dictated by where you can get a job.

Agricola

Del2005 wrote: »

That's because of the person's, or more correctly peoples, choice to live in a house that can't be served by public transport. If you choose to live miles from your neighbours then it's your problem to solve your transport needs not anyone else's. So the car is only essential because people choose to live that way.

I don't live miles from my neighbours? I live on a main road in rural Ireland, 5km from my nearest town. I have neighbours living at 100 and 200m intervals all around me.
The nearest bus service is about 5k away and that just goes to the nearest large town, 30km from me. For getting to school, work, the shops, for doing absolutely anything, a car is an absolute necessity for me and everyone else within a large radius.
Oh, and if you're under some illusion that all rural dwellers are people who buy or build houses in the most remote parts of the west of Ireland and then whine about public transport.............I live in the south east in an area that is in no way remote. But there are no bus services worth talking about.

Whats the answer? Should we just all move to the cities? Or maybe, should we have a bit of sense and recognize that our tiny population is widely dispersed. We are not an urban society built on a network of huge cities. So maybe government should make an effort to allow people to run cars affordably since there is zero point in trying to provide a loss making bus service in these areas!

colm_mcm

Now that co2 taxed cars are hitting affordable levels (being 10 years old) it should be less of an issue. But the gov sat on their hands for 10 years on the totally unfair cc based tax. Now obviously migrating older cars onto co2 would see increases in a lot of models, but if the co2 rate is lower than the cc rate it would make sense to encourage ownership of these cars regardless of age. Of course that would result in less revenue in tax take, (net benefit based on the pretty shonky notion that Co2 is the enemy) but in a lot of cases it’s would increase compliance. The number of cars that have 10-15 owners all of a sudden tells me that the ‘3 months on, 3 months off’ way of life is still very much a thing.

Del2005

Agricola wrote: »

I don't live miles from my neighbours? I live on a main road in rural Ireland, 5km from my nearest town. I have neighbours living at 100 and 200m intervals all around me.
The nearest bus service is about 5k away and that just goes to the nearest large town, 30km from me. For getting to school, work, the shops, for doing absolutely anything, a car is an absolute necessity for me and everyone else within a large radius.
Oh, and if you're under some illusion that all rural dwellers are people who buy or build houses in the most remote parts of the west of Ireland and then whine about public transport.............I live in the south east in an area that is in no way remote. But there are no bus services worth talking about.

Whats the answer? Should we just all move to the cities? Or maybe, should we have a bit of sense and recognize that our tiny population is widely dispersed. We are not an urban society built on a network of huge cities. So maybe government should make an effort to allow people to run cars affordably since there is zero point in trying to provide a loss making bus service in these areas!

You could live in a town or village, like the UK or Europe, and then public transport and services can be viable. By living 5km away you are the reason that they can't be provided.

bear1

Del2005 wrote: »

You could live in a town or village, like the UK or Europe, and then public transport and services can be viable. By living 5km away you are the reason that they can't be provided.

What if the prices of houses within walking distance of public transport were too high? Should you then live in a tent or under a bridge?
You can't simply brush off a big part of the population cause they live in rural zones.
Where you live depends on a few factors and the biggest of which is "can I afford it?".

Indricotherium

Agricola wrote: »

I don't live miles from my neighbours? I live on a main road in rural Ireland, 5km from my nearest town. I have neighbours living at 100 and 200m intervals all around me.
The nearest bus service is about 5k away


Whats the answer? Should we just all move to the cities? Or maybe, should we have a bit of sense and recognize that our tiny population is widely dispersed. We are not an urban society built on a network of huge cities. So maybe government should make an effort to allow people to run cars affordably since there is zero point in trying to provide a loss making bus service in these areas!

You can't have it both ways... If u want a house in every field you have to walk to the bus.

Buy a house in a town if u want a bus stop near you.

bear1

CalamariFritti wrote: »

Ok the way i worded it seems a bit harsh to you but what’s the alternative? Are we saying people living in rural areas should be allowed a car regardless whether they can afford one or tax or insurance?

An alternative, how about those living in rural areas which isn't served by public transport receive a rebate or discounted cc rates?

colm_mcm

Del2005 wrote: »

You could live in a town or village, like the UK or Europe, and then public transport and services can be viable. By living 5km away you are the reason that they can't be provided.

I lived in a town of 8500 people and the bus service was pretty poor not to mention pricey. Now I live in a village of 1500, just off the motorway and the bus service is shockingly expensive and infrequent. A local town has a train station that is also a joke. The train track passes the town of 8500 but there is no station, with a big chunk of the population working in the city.

If I was to give up my car, I could get in and out of work (taking 3 times as long) but things like going to the supermarket would be very difficult. So until the public transport improves drastically I can’t realistically give up my car.

That’s not even out in the sticks. If I were in other counties it would be even harder. We can’t even build houses for the existing city folk, so the idea of centralising the population to cities is pie in the sky stuff.

When the nearest thing to a plan is to direct all infrastructure and investment to Dublin and see what happens, we culchies will never have a viable public transport system outside of the cities themselves.

Agricola

Del2005 wrote: »

You could live in a town or village, like the UK or Europe, and then public transport and services can be viable. By living 5km away you are the reason that they can't be provided.

It's affordable to get around in an urban setting as you do not need to own a car to survive.

It is not affordable to get around in a rural setting, as you DO need a car to survive.

The tax euro of rural dwellers go into the same coffers as urban dwellers to pay for the same essential services.

I don't expect a fúcking Luas outside my door. I'm a realist. Public transport for rural Ireland, like Fibre Broadband, will never be a thing. That's the nature of a widely dispersed population. All I ask is that if we must persist with the legalised extortion that is the CC based tax system for older cars, don't punish people further with interest on quarterly and half yearly payments. In 2017 there are myriad ways to negate the need for printing tax disks, all this could be done electronically and cheaply if the will was there. But as I alluded to in my first post, the will is not there. Primarily because of the huge loss of easy revenue from the current system and secondarily because of an abundance of civil servants whose roles are made redundant if we go down the road of taking tax disks off windscreens.

bear1

colm_mcm wrote: »

I lived in a town of 8500 people and the bus service was pretty poor not to mention pricey. Now I live in a village of 1500, just off the motorway and the bus service is shockingly expensive and infrequent. A local town has a train station that is also a joke. The train track passes the town of 8500 but there is no station, with a big chunk of the population working in the city.

If I was to give up my car, I could get in and out of work (taking 3 times as long) but things like going to the supermarket would be very difficult. So until the public transport improves drastically I can’t realistically give up my car.

That’s not even out in the sticks. If I were in other counties it would be even harder. We can’t even build houses for the existing city folk, so the idea of centralising the population to cities is pie in the sky stuff.

When the nearest thing to a plan is to direct all infrastructure and investment to Dublin and see what happens, we culchies will never have a viable public transport system outside of the cities themselves.

Well said.
My folks live just outside Loughrea which isn't that small of a town and it has quite a few buses to and from Galway.
But to live in Loughrea would be quite expensive and moving a few km outside the town reduced their mortgage payment plan but they need to rely on a car to do their shopping and whatnot.
People who live in Dublin seem to think that the rest of country can't expect good services cause people choose to live there..
Silly argument tbh.

colm_mcm

The UK has a huge ANPR and CCTV network which can detect non compliance. There is no way we could love to a similar system here. The actual pronting of the tax disc isn’t where all the labour goes anyway.

bear1

colm_mcm wrote: »

The UK has a huge ANPR and CCTV network which can detect non compliance. There is no way we could love to a similar system here. The actual pronting of the tax disc isn’t where all the labour goes anyway.

I'd actually like to see the government do a feasibility study on removing the actual motor tax physically and attaching it to the price of fuel.
Instead of saying oh it would 2/3c more a litre, an actual serious study.

colm_mcm

Oh yeah, that would make loads of sense. Prob never happen though.

Dev84

No need for a paper tax disc anymore tbh. Its nothing shirt of fraud that they can charge more if you tax your car quaterly rather than yearly. Thats where we are but.

bear1

It was brought up in 2013 but Noonan rejected it as he claimed it would add 20c to the cost of fuel per litre.

http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-motor-tax-fuel-costs-857940-Apr2013/

Agricola

If that was to happen, and assuming it worked out at an extra 5c a litre, I'd be spending the princely sum of €29 a year on motor tax.... as opposed to the 700/800 I currently pay.

Yeah, so that's a non runner!

BorneTobyWilde

Car is a car. Should be 300 for everything.
If a guy wants to drive a v12 petrol then let him, he'll pay a crap load of more tax with the cost of fueling it.

James Bond Junior

Agricola wrote: »

If that was to happen, and assuming it worked out at an extra 5c a litre, I'd be spending the princely sum of €29 a year on motor tax.... as opposed to the 700/800 I currently pay.

Yeah, so that's a non runner!

I pay €1100. 55 litres a week is €2.75 at 5c a litre which is €143 over the 52 weeks of the year. Not really a runner to be fair.

I live in the city, less than a minutes walk from the bus stop which can bring me into the city centre and beyond. Anytime I do choose to get the bus I wait up to 45 minutes for a bus which is supposed to come every 15. I pay €2.20 to go into town and another €2.20 to come out. I can park my car for about €2 an hour and be in the city in minutes if I drive. The last time I got the bus it took 30 mins to arrive and stopped half way for 15 minutes. A 10 min car journey took well over an hour. Ironically I was going into town to collect my car which was in the garage and I actually would have walked in less than half the time. Why would you be bothered with public transport, even if you have it quite literally on your doorstep?

bear1

Agricola wrote: »

If that was to happen, and assuming it worked out at an extra 5c a litre, I'd be spending the princely sum of €29 a year on motor tax.... as opposed to the 700/800 I currently pay.

Yeah, so that's a non runner!

James Bond Junior wrote: »

I pay €1100. 55 litres a week is €2.75 at 5c a litre which is €143 over the 52 weeks of the year. Not really a runner to be fair.

That's why it wouldn't be 5c, also you need to factor in inflation and the obvious oil price fluctuation.
I'd agree more that it would be around the 20-30c mark than 5c.
Also, factor in that the Government simply increase the tax on fuel and your motor tax would increase also.
But it's biggest benefit is that no one can avoid paying it.
No longer the need to declare a car off the road.
Honestly I think it's the wisest approach.

Charles Babbage

Dev84 wrote: »

No need for a paper tax disc anymore tbh. Its nothing shirt of fraud that they can charge more if you tax your car quaterly rather than yearly. Thats where we are but.

Lots of things cost more if paid in instalments, these create extra administrative costs. Just pay the thing by the year.

Dravokivich

bear1 wrote: »

I'd actually like to see the government do a feasibility study on removing the actual motor tax physically and attaching it to the price of fuel.
Instead of saying oh it would 2/3c more a litre, an actual serious study.

I could have sworn there was a discussion on that before and a previous tax for motorists had already been absorbed in a similar manner, only for the current road tax to come in later?

Agricola

bear1 wrote: »

That's why it wouldn't be 5c, also you need to factor in inflation and the obvious oil price fluctuation.
I'd agree more that it would be around the 20-30c mark than 5c.
Also, factor in that the Government simply increase the tax on fuel and your motor tax would increase also.
But it's biggest benefit is that no one can avoid paying it.
No longer the need to declare a car off the road.
Honestly I think it's the wisest approach.

It's definitely the wisest approach from a number of angles. No off road declarations, you pay motor tax based on how much you use the roads, which would be some nod towards fairness as regards maintenance/upkeep costs. We're constantly hearing about climate change and O2 emissions, so tax on fuel would hit those who pollute more. It's the same as water charges in theory. Why should everyone pay a flat fee when some users consume a fraction of others usage?

TBH, these are the kinds of ideas that might fly in Scandinavia but I'd have no belief whatsoever that they'd work here.

dmc17

Agricola wrote: »

What would motor tax office employees all over the country do then!?

They could be made redundant along with the printing of tax discs. Then they could get a job doing something which would be more beneficial to them and the economy

beauf

Del2005 wrote: »

Agricola wrote: »

What bullshít. Have you ever been outside Dublin? Or whatever urban setting you obviously live in. For a huge percentage of the population, car ownership is as necessary as running water and electricity.

That's because of the person's, or more correctly peoples, choice to live in a house that can't be served by public transport. If you choose to live miles from your neighbours then it's your problem to solve your transport needs not anyone else's. So the car is only essential because people choose to live that way.

That's not even true in Dublin where often a 30 min car journey is a 60-90 min public transport one.

beauf

colm_mcm wrote: »

The UK has a huge ANPR and CCTV network which can detect non compliance. There is no way we could love to a similar system here. The actual pronting of the tax disc isn’t where all the labour goes anyway.

We already do it for tolls...

Where does all the labour go then. It could be a completely automated online system.

eeguy

Del2005 wrote: »

You could live in a town or village, like the UK or Europe, and then public transport and services can be viable. By living 5km away you are the reason that they can't be provided.

This is a non-issue and totally infeasible.

Due to decades of planning laws, Irish houses are far more scattered than anything in the UK or Europe.
Transport links outside larger towns and cities are non-existant. My local bus goes into town twice a day. It's a 20 minute walk from my house. There's no stop or shelter, just a muddy patch on the side of the road. I'm sure it's the same up and down the country.

Cars are essential in Ireland, yet we're crippled by extortionate tax and insurance cost with little benefit in return.

Agricola

I don't understand why a tax disk on the windscreen is necessary. Even if you take into account we don't have some massive CCTV network, the reason people in Ireland don't like travelling a mile without a tax disk (even if the car IS taxed!) is fear of meeting a checkpoint.
If the garda traffic corps was equipped with a simple number plate recognition device (maybe even an app on a smartphone!) which checked the status of the tax against a central database, wouldn't this have the exact same result as having or not having a windscreen disk?

bear1

Dravokivich wrote: »

I could have sworn there was a discussion on that before and a previous tax for motorists had already been absorbed in a similar manner, only for the current road tax to come in later?

You mean the scrapping of motor tax back in the 70s? They popped the price onto fuel and then the next government came in and reintroduced motor tax based on the cc but kept the motor tax rate on fuel applied
So technically we are already paying the rates on the fuel.

bazz26

Scrapping the paper tax disc seems to have been an epic fail in the UK:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/nov/16/untaxed-vehicles-uk-trebles-tax-disc-abolition-vehicle-excise-duty-dvla

bear1

bazz26 wrote: »

Scrapping the paper tax disc seems to have been an epic fail in the UK:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/nov/16/untaxed-vehicles-uk-trebles-tax-disc-abolition-vehicle-excise-duty-dvla

Further enhances that pay as you go would be the best.
Be great if we had something like the REGO system but I can see the insurance industry blocking it.

9935452

bear1 wrote: »

That's why it wouldn't be 5c, also you need to factor in inflation and the obvious oil price fluctuation.
I'd agree more that it would be around the 20-30c mark than 5c.
Also, factor in that the Government simply increase the tax on fuel and your motor tax would increase also.
But it's biggest benefit is that no one can avoid paying it.
No longer the need to declare a car off the road.
Honestly I think it's the wisest approach.

This topic comes up every now and again.
People hear 2 or 3 cent a litre and dont do the calculations. The government isnt going to lose out
Doing up rough my own calculations. Diesel A4 paying chape tax of 280 a year.
To get the same income from me if they put the tax on the fuel , it would have to be 24 cent a litre. Making it 90 euro to fill my car
If i was taxed on the cc rate it would need to be 58 cent a litre.


Knowing our government they would chose something around 50 cent a litre to increase income and add vat on that for good measure
Worst case scenario is add in a fuel shortage and you would be paying over 2 euro a litre.
If it was costing 100 to 120 euro to fill the car with fuel it wouldnt be long til people were looking to go back to the old tax rates.

James Bond Junior

Agricola wrote: »

I don't understand why a tax disk on the windscreen is necessary. Even if you take into account we don't have some massive CCTV network, the reason people in Ireland don't like travelling a mile without a tax disk (even if the car IS taxed!) is fear of meeting a checkpoint.
If the garda traffic corps was equipped with a simple number plate recognition device (maybe even an app on a smartphone!) which checked the status of the tax against a central database, wouldn't this have the exact same result as having or not having a windscreen disk?

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/287369/non-compliance-with-road-traffic-laws-highlighted-at-limerick-garda-checkpoint.html

Riva10

bear1 wrote: »

I'd actually like to see the government do a feasibility study on removing the actual motor tax physically and attaching it to the price of fuel.
Instead of saying oh it would 2/3c more a litre, an actual serious study.

And in 2 or 3 years time another tax could be put on all road vehicles. Remember the water charge .

colm_mcm

beauf wrote: »

We already do it for tolls...

Where does all the labour go then. It could be a completely automated online system.

That’s on one point on the busiest road in the country. The UK has over 8000 cameras covering all sorts of roads.

My point about the labour was in relation to a suggestion that we just do away with paper discs, people would still need to tax their cars unless something else were to change.
I read lately that the discless system in the uk has led to more non compliance. It’s very quick to do a visual roadside check without any equipment if there are discs.

K.Flyer

I am a firm believer in putting it on the fuel, if you're rolling you are paying, it really couldn't be any simpler.
In my case I would probably end up paying about twice as much in "road tax" on my commercial van, but would only pay about half on our family car as it does so little mileage.
Many years ago, pre insurance window disc, having a current Tax Disc was usually an indication that you had insurance as well because you could not get your vehicle taxed unless you produced your insurance cert in the tax office at the same time.
But we will always have people decrying the idea citing that there would be an exodus over the border to buy fuel.

beauf

colm_mcm wrote: »

beauf wrote: »

We already do it for tolls...

Where does all the labour go then. It could be a completely automated online system.

That’s on one point on the busiest road in the country. The UK has over 8000 cameras covering all sorts of roads.

My point about the labour was in relation to a suggestion that we just do away with paper discs, people would still need to tax their cars unless something else were to change.
I read lately that the discless system in the uk has led to more non compliance. It’s very quick to do a visual roadside check without any equipment if there are discs.

That's just because we can't be bothered to fix the current not pita system that many ignore what.

Roadside checks...I remember then. Haven't seen one in years.

jelutong

Del2005 wrote: »

That's because of the person's, or more correctly peoples, choice to live in a house that can't be served by public transport. If you choose to live miles from your neighbours then it's your problem to solve your transport needs not anyone else's. So the car is only essential because people choose to live that way.

Dublin City is the only place with a decent public transport system.
The rest of Ireland is in the dark ages by comparison.

eeguy

jelutong wrote: »

Dublin City is the only place with a decent public transport system.
The rest of Ireland is in the dark ages by comparison.

And people in Dublin will rightly tell you the system is beyond capacity and badly needs investment.

The whole notion of "shure if you want good public transport then why don't you just move to the city" is backwards and anti-progressive.

PurvesGrundy

She added the loss of €55.3m from the additional money collected via the current system would have to be recouped through increased motor tax charges, or through other taxation.

You would nearly think motor tax isn't extortionate as it is by that statement.

What we consider as average motor tax on a 1.8 family saloon is the top rate British motorists pay on Italian exotica.

bazz26

PurvesGrundy wrote: »

You would nearly think motor tax isn't extortionate as it is by that statement.

What we consider as average motor tax on a 1.8 family saloon is the top rate British motorists pay on Italian exotica.

The average UK household pays more in the form of council tax (property tax) than we do too so be careful what you wish for.

PurvesGrundy

bazz26 wrote: »

The average UK household pays more in the form of council tax (property tax) than we do too so be careful what you wish for.

They get very good services in return for those council taxes. It's not like rip-off Ireland where we pay on the double for everything.

bazz26

Train users over there would disagree with you. The service is poor and the cost of using it is very expensive.