Your views on Motor Tax (Systems)

Chippy01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120677866#Comment_120677866

From what I remember from them days back then,(late 70's - early 80's -ish), ROAD TAX was abolished and a few pennies were added to the cost of fuel. But although road tax was basically gone, with the excuse of monitoring vehicle numbers, etc, a motor registration charge of only £5 was introduced.

At the next budget, that £5 increased to £10, and then upped to £20, and then the whole motor registration charge was scrapped and the old CC based MOTOR TAX was introduced.

But the extra few pennies that were put onto fuel initially, was never taken off.

I have searched online to confirm my memories of the time in question, but have turned up nothing. If you can source the actual facts of the time, I would like to see it.

FishOnABike

What does seem bizarre is the significant difference in motor tax for an average car, with the same CO2 emissions level, depending on the date first registered. e.g. CO2 = 154g/km, typical for a mid size 1.6L petrol engines car.

A post 2021 C2 emissions category (150g/km < CO2 ≤ 160g/km) is €280.

The same car, if first registered between 2008 and 2021 would be in C emission category (140g/km < CO2 ≤ 155g/km) would be €400.

The same car, if first registered before 2008, (1.5L < engine capacity ≤ 1.6L) would be €514.

It's an anomaly that should be addressed. Why should a car with the same emission level be one-and-a-half to two times as expensive to tax, depending solely on when it was first registered?

Source: https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/90909/c1c067a4-052b-406a-86dd-33a6830f90ad.pdf#page=null

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120680197#Comment_120680197

It was abolished only on cars below a certain hp limit. Initially there wasn't to be extra tax put onto petrol/fuel but there was in practice. This may have happened anyway. That was way back and our situation is different now with EVs etc.

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120680197#Comment_120680197

It was part of a FF election promise in the late 70’s by Charlie Haughey and Seamus Brennan. They won by a landslide. They abolished Road Tax and Household Rates.

They created a budget blackhole and and back then rates and road tax went directly to the local councils and corporations (hence why we have county based reg plates and in Limerick and Waterford’s cases specific ones for the city/corporation)

They brought it back in bit by bit after that but they also succeeded in taking huge financial power away from the councils who have to compete for funding centrally with every other council.

Irish Times had an article on FF’s election ploys over the years but it’s so long since I read it, it was actually on paper! Must have been during the 2007 election campaign.

saabsaab

From a Dail Debate at the time. It wasn't a total abolition..

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1981-01-28/47/

Thinkingaboutit

Our rulers have a love of the death by a thousand cuts model of taxation, and the green codology (seeing our last briquette plant closing which now means they're to be imported and gas to be imported from eastern despotisms rather than extracted off our coasts because Eamon Ryan won't approve applications for exploration or drilling) can be used to justify even more stupid taxes. Anyhow 120 Euro a year probably doesn't cover the damage to roads from generally far heavier electric vehicles and the great amount of micro-plastic pollution coming off them as a result. Perhaps charge the tax via a levy on charging stations at service stations. It seems a simpler pay as go way.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120680340#Comment_120680340

I see this is as the one just element in the taxation of cars. Someone running an older car generally will not have the means or financial recklessness (ie bought on the tick) of someone with a two ton lithium ion battery road shattering behemoth and will have to put up with somewhat higher maintenance costs. This man or woman will oft times live in areas where public transport doesn't exist and safe cycling and walking routes are basically pie in the sky. A Green politician can choose his Tesla, get his bicycle carried in a state car. Most cannot do that.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120680768#Comment_120680768

congratulations on starting your annual thread on this topic.

congratulations on posting the exact same posts on your annual thread.

congratulations on posting the exact same links on your annual thread.

congratulations on deciding to have limited engagement with other posters and instead focus on repeating your points for the last few years.

lock this mess up

elperello

I only just noticed this thread and I read through the posts.

Some interesting contributions on a subject that affects us all.

My own plea is for the pre 08 sector which has surely paid it's dues by now.

Time to give these cars a break, a lot are paying more in tax than the value of the car.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120677847#Comment_120677847

Any tax which goes into general taxation means that you will be taxed again, for the same thing, in a few years

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120680768#Comment_120680768

You have your dates, and debate , all wrong. 81 was an attempt to reintroduce some motor tax. It was abolished for all cars in 77. Martin O'Donoghue was minister for economic development. It was all part of the FF manifesto in 1977

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120681401#Comment_120681401

There is only about 400,000 cars left on the old system. About 30% of these are under 1000cc and the vast majority under 1600cc IIRC. They’ll just be left to age out into the vintage rate or the breakers.

3DataModem

Before considering restructuring of any tax system, you have to ask the question "who are we expecting to pay more?"

Because you can't just make it cheaper for everybody.

magicbastarder

taxing by size and weight makes sense; but weight is obviously a much cleaner metric than size.

and another complication is differing fuel types and vehicle tranmissions; e.g. you could have two cars from the same manufacturer which are essentially the same size, but where the heavier car is more fuel efficient (be it hybrid or full electric); so it's very difficult to define an easy system which is logically consistent and fair.

LIGHTNING

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120681551#Comment_120681551

Sure you can, the government pushed out the new Co2 bands to encourage folks to lower their emissions. So loads of people did that and oh wait they bumped up the lowest bracket by a huge amount. Disregard 😐️

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120681086#Comment_120681086

Congratulations on reading this thread. If you cared to look at it properly you would see it isn't the same as before but askiing for peoples views on the topic. perhaps you don't like debate.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120681503#Comment_120681503

Not wrong at all. Yes it was 1977 but the debate shown was about the abolition even if it was later. Not much on the net about it really but the tax was abolished for cars equal to 16HP or less only and the lost income was not initially added to the fuel.

R.O.R

There is a massive % of the cost of fuel which is tax, so people who do more mileage each year, pay more tax (as part of the cost of fuel) than those who don't do big mileage.

Motor tax is an elective tax. You buy a car, you know what the annual tax rate is. You don't want to pay a high amount of tax, buy a car with a lower annual motor tax rate. While there have been increases in road tax over the past decade and a bit, no increases have been that substantial to warrant changing one car for another.

Those who want to add even more tax on to an already high amount of tax per litre, are either those who do small annual mileage with a car that costs quite a bit to tax, or people who want to buy something with a high tax rate, to do little mileage per year in.

creedp

Or have an EV and want to shove it to ICE drivers

In fairness some may be doing it for the right reasons, attempting to strong arm people into EVs for environmental, geopolitical, etc reasons

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120681528#Comment_120681528

It was mostly the prospective vintage type of car I was thinking of.

Take a 2 litre as an example, they have paid over 10k in motor tax already and will have paid nearly another 10k by the time they hit 30.

A lot of them will never see it, either scrapped or exported.

Give them a break not a trip to the breakers I say.

hoodie6029

The short answer to the future of motor tax is to ask SIMI or the Green Party. If the GP are in coalition, they’ll get their way. Later on, SIMI will get a scrappage scheme or something similar to compensate them for the Green’s actions.

If they aren’t, the government of the day will do whatever SIMI want.

Either way SIMI win and joe soap is screwed.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120681852#Comment_120681852

They removed the tax in 77. It was restored for larger engines before 81

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120683342#Comment_120683342

Jack Lynch was Taoiseach and George Colley was Minister for Finance.

They won the election in June with 84 seats and introduced the new motor tax regime in August.

Registration fee was £5 for cars up to and including 16hp and £1 for motorcycles.

bog master

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120678606#Comment_120678606

Yes you do! I can own a car, keep it in my yard, not use it on a public road and no tax if applicable. If I use that car on a public road, a tax is levied, hence a ROAD TAX

magicbastarder

but i can bring my bike out onto the road and cycle away to my heart's content, and i pay no tax!

i wonder what's the difference between my bike and your car which would explain this strangeness?

mikeecho

The Dutch system accounts for

Vehicle weight

Emissions

Cc

.

We get away lightly here.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120683417#Comment_120683417

Yes, Colley was minister for Finance ( and didn't really get on with Lynch ) . Lynch created the Ministry of economic planning and development. O'Donoghue had already produced this economic miracle or no road tax or household rates for the 1977 FF manifesto and Lynch appointed him a minister . I think he was newly elected having previously held an academic post.

When Haughey became Taoiseach he eliminated the department of economic planning and development and , with it, Prof Donoghue.

loyatemu

any change will have winners and losers, and with most of the changes suggested here the losers will be rural folk or long-distance commuters who drive more KMs and have larger vehicles on average. That'll go down like a lead balloon with rural FFG TDs and the likes of the Healy-Raes; "bloody jackeens interfering with the rural way of life while they swan around on their eScooters and metro systems" and so on. Do it on weight and EVs will be disproportionately affected - "bloody Eamonn Ryan, first he tells us buy EVs then he bangs up the tax on them"

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120685554#Comment_120685554

It would be pretty simple to introduce a weight based system for EVs

Tbh it's pretty silly to be applying a CO2 based system on zero CO2 emission vehicle

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120685803#Comment_120685803

Taking the CO2 created during manufacturing and transport to market into account count be an interesting spin on it though.

Car produced in factory using green energy vs coal. Maybe not for the annual tax but for VRT it would be interesting.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120686867#Comment_120686867

Should manufacturing based CO2 not be charged in country of manufacture and therefore reflected in the purchase price. Why does the Irish consumer have to pay on the double? The reality is CO2 based taxes are simply a swizz to extract more money from consumers under the guise of protecting the environment.