labour had already lost my vote when they decided to retrospectively change the tax bands from 2001 cars, which is completely unfair. but now i'm sure they will lose many more votes now they have been proven to misdirect the public on the matter. even if you ignore browns comment saying that the majority of drivers will be better off (which is plain wrong) and look at the comment they like to use being the majority will be better off or no worse. ok that is true, but its a trick because its also true that the majority will be worse off or remain the same.. so both polarities are correct, but the worse off people are more significant as there are more of them than there are those better off. its scandalous. labour=dead.
....... There's got to be a hundred reasons why i should listen to diesel owners, but right now, i can't think of any.
If the Government wants to change the tax on NEW cars, then fine. I can do something about that. I can avoid highly taxed cars.
However, making the fuel tax retrospective cannot change my PAST buying behaviour at all - it is already history.
Effectively, they are punishing me for not being clairvoyant about a choice that I made in the past!
If they can have retrospective taxes, then I demand the right to retrospectively change my vote. I'm ashamed to admit that I voted for these jokers in 1997.
Never again!
---------------------------------------------------- "mad-g" is the display name of "mad-git"
indeed that is my point i'm not trying yet again to bring up the diesel vs petrol argument which bamford does. but express my fury at the government for doing what they have done to us. what will they do next? charge us again for the fuel we have already used over the last 10 years based on a national average consumption..?
....... There's got to be a hundred reasons why i should listen to diesel owners, but right now, i can't think of any.
Originally posted by beach: they must realise the one simple fact. unless they don't cancel the retrospective aspect of the tax then they will NOT win any election.
Hopefully even cancelling the retrospective tax will not save them. Personally I think the fairest green tax on cars would be to add it on petrol so the more miles you do the more you pay. Most of the people I know with more than 4.0l engine hardly do 10K p.a in them while I know many guys driving 2.0L and doing 25-30k miles p.a. After all a parked car does not cause any emissions. Let me not get started on thieving councils who want to charge depending on you cars CO2 output.
They've plugged it as a "green" tax, on that basis they'd look very silly pulling it, in fact it would make the tax look like what it really is, a money raising exercise, not a green tax....
As for "not being clairvoyant", the writing was on the wall for cars with high CO2 emmissions when it was announced back in 2000 - the Gov made it very clear that it was a green tax, and as such would punish the higher bands - you didn't have to have been a clairvoyant to realise that, just have read the details at the time....
I would agree with you re the breaking down of the bands into more bands... but if they left them alone and then wanted the same revenue income then many people whos cars just fell into a higher band would end up paying more to subsidise the ones at the top of their band... having more bands actually makes it fairer!
"Retrospective" tax is a thorney issue, however you could say that Kyoto was signed in 2000, and anyone buying a high CO2 veehicle was/is ignoring that obligation so tough cheddar.
I think CO2 bands tax is working (agree with b308 more bands would be better) and people are buying more fuel economic cars which is the only way fuel prices can be held down in the next 30 years whether GW exists or not. The prob has always been rich folks buy cars that non rich folks have to drive the second hand, often inappropriate for their needs cars, i.e. thirsty.
The current rolling road CO2 test is pretty poor in my opinion, and should be changed in favour of an independently conducted track road sim tests.
Yes would agree with the "test" TB, its too much down to the manufacturer at the moment and they supply "optimised" cars for it (how else would a Prius be so good!!)....
With regards to the sh prices of the "rich" people's cars, I'm not so sure... if the drivers buying sh can't afford the running costs they will only buy if the price is right and if the running costs are known to be very high then the sh price will be reflected in that... what I mean is that some rich people will continue to buy Hummers and the like (probably Celebs), but the true rich (those that earned it properly and appreciate the value of money) will either keep the vehicle longer or get a less polluting vehicle...
BTW having just returned from 2 weeks on the continent I was pleased to see that our partners in the EEC seem not to have fallen for the 4x4 bug and the roads were noticably free of the monstrosities.. it was great!!
BTW Asset, I know many people who agree with you re adding the tax to fuel, but I'm not convinced - if the aim is really to reduce emmissions that surely encouraging someone to buy a more efficient car to run over small mileages is preferable to running a large one small mileages? And thinking about it most "low mileage" cars are run over only small distances on each journey, when a small engine is far more efficient... even better reason to tax larger engined cars, I'm afraid!
