I have just had my VED reminder for my 2005 Volvo at £415 a year.
If I bought a new car it would cost about that a month for a car I would never own.
I will continue to pay the exorbitant VED as it makes more sense to run an older car that can tow and do 52 mpg on the motorway with a range of 600 miles per tankful.
I only tax my Eunos for the summer six months as I will not use it on salty roads and I dont care what its tax costs me for its fun factor !
The only new car I have liked is the Toyota Yaris GR4 but would it be more fun than my ITB Eunos.
4 Likes
For those drivers who only do low mileage each year it would pay dividends to SORN the car and only tax it when you are going to drive the thing. Pay the tax by monthly instalments and SORN the car again at the end of the month.
It’s a waste of money to tax a car for a full year and then only drive it a few hundred miles.
It is very easy to do this and takes only a few minutes.
3 Likes
Agreed. Sorning/ unsorning is super easy. I tax my cars annually and didn’t find any disadvantages over monthly. As mentioned you do need to time it for the end/beginning of the month.
I do hope the government don’t get too heavy-handed on older cars. A LOT of people can only afford them.
I like the idea upthread that maybe cars should be taxed on weight. Apparently there is concern that if we buy enough electric cars everything from roads to multi-level car parks will have to be reinforced to stand the strain. That does sound like unexpected consequences and not very net zero.
2 Likes
This is what i do and will re-tax it on 31 Mar.
1 Like
@Beryl as an MX5 owner taxing by weight is appealing. In reality the weight of cars has been soaring for years as cars get safer and people unfathomably switch to SUVs. Electric cars are heavier, but neither of ours way close to as much ad a diesel BMW X3 for example.
I think the only fair option in the long term will be to charge by a rating that may combine weight, size and emissions, and then by the distance driven. Maybe even with some kind of discount for miles driven rurally rather than in cities, in acknowledgment of the lack of alternatives to driving if you live in the countryside. It’d be complicated to set up though.
2 Likes
I believe if you do not retax using your reminder you can tax your vehicle immediately using your log book details. The government website will give you a warning that you will be incurring extra costs e.g. losing a month’s tax, but you will be taxing your vehicle at the old rate if this is done before 1st April. You could also SORN your vehicle and then tax it again the very next day at the post office and the old/cheaper rate will apply
1 Like
I thought of this. As I’m one of the very drivers who don’t, yet only give it a spin about once a month (if possible) over Nov-March inclusive, if enough rain’s washed the salt away. However, as it lives outside, I worry if it sits for 6 months, with not a single run, the brake disks might be all over the place (pit). Yes you can get covers, but stuff touching stuff can cause scratches, plus moisture is in the air anyway, even if okay from direct contact with rain. So I though the extra £85 (remember, it’s not just half price) saving isn’t worth it, versus the ability to drive it, albeit limited, over winter.
Some people too park on the road.
1 Like
I think it should be on how many miles between MOT that would be fair but any solution that benefits the driver government definitely not go for Tax them til they die should be there moto lol 
Based on weight of vehicle
Understand this happens in The Netherlands
1 Like
I find that my 2016 1.5 litre ND MX5 is a very green car with good fuel consumption and low weight. I pay my VED by monthly direct debit and currently it is £16.62/ month quite a saving compared with my old NB. The Road fund Licence stopped being used exclusively for roads in 1936 when all the revenue went straight to the exchequer.
The fuel duty fairly taxes motorists with IC cars for the mileage they travel and the size of the engine so there should not be a need for additional road pricing. EVs are a different matter.
1 Like
I think it’s EVs that are going to be the issue. I pay a tiny fraction of the tax on petrol to fill our EVs at home overnight. Something equating to 0.15p per mile in VAT. Great for me right now, but terrible for the exchequer if 50% of people are in EVs and charging at home by 2035.
I would imagine those days will come to an end. Maybe ‘smart’ stuff which will know when electric is being used to charge a transportation pod, and price ‘accordingly’. Who knows, but one thing is usually as certain as night following day, is that long term, there are rarely ‘winners’ when it comes to Gov’ts taxing, especially when it’s to recoup lost taxes on the same mode of transport.
1 Like
It’ll come sooner rather than later, when EVs start to become significant or when oil prices drop causing drop in govt tax revenue. And it should.
1 Like
Yes, can’t wait 
Still just over a pound a day for Madge, so as long as I am driving 12,000 plus miles pa on E5 I’ll not loose any sleep over it, I guess if the govt wanted to do fair they would work on a vehicle weight, mileage and pollution equation, I’d be surprised if it worked out any cheaper for me that way.
Nothing the govt would do would have the total tax revenue go down so all it would change is the split over who pays how much. So who wants to roll the dice if their light old low annual mileage cars that aren’t the cleanest would then pay less… 
2 Likes
If I wasn’t driving a 47mpg MX-5 on holiday it would be a 38mph diesel or I’d be on an aircraft. So I can reconcile my environmental concerns with that.
3 Likes
I read that I can only retax early up to 2 months and if I SORN I have to wait 5 days before retaxing. Is that correct?
My V6 Elgrand, returning 20mpg, with a Co2/km of probably shed loads gave me not once single, itsy bitsy concern about any ‘environmental’ impact it allegedly may make 
I brought this up at work the other week, I think that a base level (sliding scale, based on vehicle weight) + a per mile ‘fee’ would be the fairest way to go.
1 Like