Abolish car tax

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 2:45pm #1

In the context of an upcoming GE if a party was to include this on a manifesto would there be support?

Abolish car tax replace it with a flat registration yearly fee say 50 p.a. then transfer the shortfall onto fossil fuels at the pump. Much fairer the more you burn the more you pay. Overall there would be no loss to the exchequer. Could also apply to electricity. Much greener policy too..

Poll attached

AlfaZen · 10-01-2020 2:53pm

saabsaab wrote: »

In the context of an upcoming GE if a party was to include this on a manifesto would there be support?

Abolish car tax replace it with a flat registration yearly fee say 50 p.a. then transfer the shortfall onto fossil fuels at the pump. Much fairer the more you burn the more you pay. Overall there would be no loss to the exchequer. Could also apply to electricity. Much greener policy too..

Poll attached

Except they are pushing people away from fossil fuels so it would be a diminishing return over the next 10/20 years. This coupled with less spent on servicing (VAT) with EVs and the Government will be faced with a sizable hole in the take from Motorists. Watch them dream up new taxes the ensure the cost of owning a car EV or otherwise continues to get more expensive every year.

Early adopters may be saving now but that will change once the rest of us plebs are forced to move to EVs (if we can afford to).

colm_mcm · 10-01-2020 2:58pm

If you asked me last year when I was paying a lot for tax I would have said yes.

kuro2k · 10-01-2020 3:00pm

Government abolished the tax in the late 70's and added the cost to the price of fuel. Yay said everybody!!

The following year a nominal fee was introduced............ this nominal fee was increased in following budgets and later became motor tax

Do you really trust the government to not do the same thing again??

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 3:05pm

AlfaZen wrote: »

Except they are pushing people away from fossil fuels so it would be a diminishing return over the next 10/20 years. This coupled with less spent on servicing (VAT) with EVs and the Government will be faced with a sizable hole in the take from Motorists. Watch them dream up new taxes the ensure the cost of owning a car EV or otherwise continues to get more expensive every year.

Early adopters may be saving now but that will change once the rest of us plebs are forced to move to EVs (if we can afford to).

fair points but the electricity could also be taxed in the future and the the 50 could rise incrementally to cover any shortfalls. Would also promote less fuel use and the move to alternative travel.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:09pm

saabsaab wrote: »

fair points but the electricity could also be taxed in the future and the the 50 could rise incrementally to cover any shortfalls. Would also promote less fuel use and the move to alternative travel.

Yep if you follow this through its a very good way of transferring over the costs to any type of motor vehicle as more people take up ev.

Standard rate of 100 for petrol
Standard rate of 200 for diesel
Standard rate of 50 for ev

Further % tax on petrol and diesel as needed to disincentivise fosil.

All of the above can be tweaked year on year to provide same taxation income to state.

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 3:10pm

kuro2k wrote: »

Government abolished the tax in the late 70's and added the cost to the price of fuel. Yay said everybody!!

The following year a nominal fee was introduced............ this nominal fee was increased in following budgets and later became motor tax

Do you really trust the government to not do the same thing again??

No. Putting the tax onto fuel wasn't tried before. Car tax was abolished on smaller engines from 1977.

Akabusi · 10-01-2020 3:11pm

The best we can hope for is the Tax we pay is spent wisely and efficiently. Sadly we are way off that, apparently there are plans for a dual carriageway between Castlebar and Westport, of all the infrastructure needed that would be well down my list.

CiniO · 10-01-2020 3:11pm

They've done it in Poland in mid 90's.
Abandoned motortax which was collected by local authorities, and instead government promisted to compensate local authorities with money collected from fuel tax.
Fuel tax wasn't rised though, so you can't say that cost of motortax for car owners was moved to fuel...

Seemed to work allright.

ednwireland · 10-01-2020 3:12pm

kennethsmyth wrote: »

Yep if you follow this through its a very good way of transferring over the costs to any type of motor vehicle as more people take up ev.

Standard rate of 100 for petrol
Standard rate of 200 for diesel
Standard rate of 50 for ev

Further % tax on petrol and diesel as needed to disincentivise fosil.

All of the above can be tweaked year on year to provide same taxation income to state.

great if you can afford a new car and screw everyone else! how about taxing electricity from home car chargers as we need to get all types of vehicles off the road

Tazio · 10-01-2020 3:20pm

...

EDIT' removed my own post.

kaahooters · 10-01-2020 3:24pm

your idea is bad, and you should feel bad.

itll go like this

"good news, were getting rid of car tax lads, but were gonna put 50cent on the price of pertol, diesel, green diesel, electricity and all home heating oils and cooking oils (cos daysuls can run on chip fat) to make up the shortfall. "

year two.

the short fall was greater then expected , so were introducing a levey on all vehicles of 1% the value of the vehicle to cover the shortfall"

year three,

2% this time guys,

ect ect ect.

leave it as it is ffs, your not an echonmist.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:26pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

So like when the Government told everybody to get environmentally friendly and get A tax band cars then two years later went "oh crap" and then upped the A tax band rate by like 50%?

The above structure would be known that it would move as the % of different types of cars are changed. People would not go into this blindly, it could actually be worked out in advance and spread over the 10 years to 2030.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 10-01-2020 3:29pm

I would be for a universal tax of €300 regardless of the type of car being used. It should be inclusive of all cars including pre-2008 cars where the government have already taken a huge wedge in tax My neighbour bought an Accord 2.2 diesel in 2006 and still has it, he renewed his insurance the other day as he has done every year since new. He has paid over €13,000 in tax since the car was new which is an absolute disgrace. He has more than paid his fair share in tax and at this stage pre 08 cars should be paying a flat rate of €300.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:29pm

kaahooters wrote: »

your idea is bad, and you should feel bad.

itll go like this

"good news, were getting rid of car tax lads, but were gonna put 50cent on the price of pertol, diesel, green diesel, electricity and all home heating oils and cooking oils (cos daysuls can run on chip fat) to make up the shortfall. "

year two.

the short fall was greater then expected , so were introducing a levey on all vehicles of 1% the value of the vehicle to cover the shortfall"

year three,

2% this time guys,

ect ect ect.

leave it as it is ffs, your not an echonmist.

Nope, I'm not an "echonmist" or even an economist for that matter. However it cannot be left the same and the government WILL ensure they collect the same or more taxation from motor cars in the future one way or another. So why not have a logical progression that can be seen to move smoothly over the next 10 years and be amended % and rate each year.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:30pm

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I would be for a universal tax of €300 regardless of the type of car being used. It should be inclusive of all cars including pre-2008 cars where the government have already taken a huge wedge in tax My neighbour bought an Accord 2.2 diesel in 2006 and still has it, he renewed his insurance the other day as he has done every year since new. He has paid over €13,000 in tax since the car was new which is an absolute disgrace. He has more than paid his fair share in tax and at this stage pre 08 cars should be paying a flat rate of €300.

Cant be universal as the idea is to encourage users to buy ev or at least change towards petrol/hybrid. Therefore there has to be a distinction in the fee to own a type of car.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:32pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

So like when the Government told everybody to get environmentally friendly and get A tax band cars then two years later went "oh crap" and then upped the A tax band rate by like 50%?

No matter what the government will seek to recoup the same or more taxation that motor tax etc. brings in now. Why not have an actual plan that is transparent and known to the public so they can see what will occur in the future and plan themselves accordingly.

BorneTobyWilde · 10-01-2020 3:36pm

Car is a car, people use what they have, the ones with bigger engines should have low tax as they burn more fuel, they pay more tax in long run.
Why it's the other way around I'll never know. Sad that the cancerous diesels are costing the health service millions, yet they won't lower petrol price to 1 euro as to encourage people to switch to a petrol.
Only in Ireland, all about the money.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:41pm

ednwireland wrote: »

great if you can afford a new car and screw everyone else! how about taxing electricity from home car chargers as we need to get all types of vehicles off the road

Firstly, there are secondhand electric cars at present and additionally more will come online as the years progress.

Secondly due to our geographical layout of homes and our lack of public transport cars are a necessity to many in Ireland unless you live in major cities. To start reducing cars you have to start with putting the more economical and less polluting on the road and then reduce them over time as transport increases/ individual car ownership declines.

Regarding taxing electricity from home car chargers - not as simple as you think.
1. Electric cars maybe utilised in the future (near future as wallbox has just released a charge box that allows return of electricity to grid) to balance the power grid - they are essentially power storage when not in use.
2. A lot of electric car users have solar pv and do charge from this when available.
3. Most ev users charge at night when we are producing more power than we can use and in effect again are utilising electricity that would go to waste.

There are more reasons, electricity is electricity and already taxed etc.. but as you can see from above electric cars can actually help the power/pollution situation not just have more cars on the road.

And before anyone says it just moves the pollution to the plant, this is not a full truth, the plant is far more efficient at producing electricity with less pollution than thousands of petrol or diesel cars. Also again new houses and lots of retro fitted ones are installing solar pv so the actual pull on the grid will not be linear.

kennethsmyth · 10-01-2020 3:46pm

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Car is a car, people use what they have, the ones with bigger engines should have low tax as they burn more fuel, they pay more tax in long run.
Why it's the other way around I'll never know. Sad that the cancerous diesels are costing the health service millions, yet they won't lower petrol price to 1 euro as to encourage people to switch to a petrol.
Only in Ireland, all about the money.

I do not support the government but its simple maths that the state needs a certain income to support services (like councils with rates) and therefore a certain amount of taxation is always required hence they cannot lower the petrol price as more people moving to petrol would reduce the total taxation income.

Regarding bigger engines having lower tax, that makes no sense as in addition to not encouraging traveling by car by taxation on fuels they also want the actual cars to be more efficient and less polluting i.e. smaller engined (but size is not used for taxation anymore its co2 levels are) hence the tax on larger cars.

Larger cars are more efficient on certain roads such as motorways but most of our driving in ireland is town/city etc. so smaller engines suit better here.

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 3:50pm

A quick calculation would indicate an in crease of 9-15 cent per litre depending on the breaks. Not far off normal fuel price variations.

ELM327 · 10-01-2020 3:51pm

It's been done once and they added it back.
On that basis, no.

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 3:58pm

ELM327 wrote: »

It's been done once and they added it back.
On that basis, no.

No, never tried before see one of the previous posts!

bazz26 · 10-01-2020 4:24pm

Another year, another similar thread.

If they abolished motor tax then where would a good deal of revenue come from that is used to fund the public services, social welfare, etc? They would just increase the other taxes we pay such as PAYE, VAT, etc to make up the shortfall. And then as said they will just introduce it again anyway under some other name Moving it to fuel would just encourage mass fuel laundering.

_Kaiser_ · 10-01-2020 4:30pm

Nope.. aside from the historical precedent, all this would do is punish those who are already spending a fortune commuting from a county or two away to Dublin, or who live rurally and similarly have no viable options but to drive everywhere.

Be grand for the enthusaiasts who want to run sportcars at the weekend, or the tree-hugging types, but those aren't reflective of the average road user in those scenarios.

Idbatterim · 10-01-2020 4:32pm

the vast majority of cars sold now, have as good as free motor tax!

sales of new diesel cars should be phased out by 2025 here at the latest in my opinion and no importing of them either. You should be able to reclaim vat on petrol, not just diesel. New taxis by 2023 or so, should only be electric if they are your every day saloon or hatchback, they offer incentives for cars that arent used typically 95% of the day. You'd wonder if it would make more sense to incentives or force high those doing high mileage, like taxis and chauffeurs to go electric...

the timelines here, are just so slow.

stimpson · 10-01-2020 4:32pm

Add in 3rd party insurance like in New Zealand and you have a deal.

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 4:36pm

bazz26 wrote: »

Another year, another similar thread.

If they abolished motor tax then where would a good deal of revenue come from that is used to fund the public services, social welfare, etc? They would just increase the other taxes we pay such as PAYE, VAT, etc to make up the shortfall. And then as said they will just introduce it again anyway under some other name Moving it to fuel would just encourage mass fuel laundering.

It would come from the extra price of fuel! Tailored to fit. Another benefit would be that untaxed cars etc would be caught up in the net. Our C & E could be expanded as there would be savings in admin in road tax sections the local authorities.

Idbatterim · 10-01-2020 4:37pm

kennethsmyth wrote: »

Yep if you follow this through its a very good way of transferring over the costs to any type of motor vehicle as more people take up ev.

Standard rate of 100 for petrol
Standard rate of 200 for diesel
Standard rate of 50 for ev

Further % tax on petrol and diesel as needed to disincentivise fosil.

All of the above can be tweaked year on year to provide same taxation income to state.

I honestly think the minimum motor tax for a diesel should be E500 for new cars. It would stop people buying them and destroying the environment, to save a pittance on fuel and then often suffer diesel issues, that are costly to repair, issues often caused, because they do low mileage. So they save virtually nothing on fuel anyway. But its awful for public health. the entire situation around diesel has been a disgrace!

if the actually cared about the environment, they would massively increase motor tax on fossil fuels. Ireland doesnt have a motor industry like germany and japan etc. Nodoby has to buy a new car and 99. something percent of cars on the road are totally unremakrable anyway!

People biggest decision to change , is influenced by what a number on a plaster sticker on a piece of plastic , displayed on the front and rear of the car says...

saabsaab · 10-01-2020 4:38pm

stimpson wrote: »

Add in 3rd party insurance like in New Zealand and you have a deal.

We could look at that too!

stimpson · 10-01-2020 4:39pm

saabsaab wrote: »

there would be savings in admin in road tax sections the local authorities.

:pac:

Abolish car tax

In favour of abolishing Car Tax and putting cost on fuel 242 votes

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