As 2016 slowly heads towards its final months, 2017 has a lovely welcoming gift for all car owners and drivers across the UK. If you haven’t been made aware of these changes before now then we’re here to help you out! For a lot of drivers, if their level of CO2 emissions is low then they don’t pay for the vehicle excise duty, however this new taxing system will change that.
If you’re buying a new car then you will be expected to pay a fixed rate of £140 every year, which indicates that the amount of road tax paid will no longer be dependent on the level of CO2 emissions after the first year of driving the new car. Also, if you are paying a minimum of £40,000 for any car (including ones with no CO2 emissions) there will be a supplement of £310 each year for 5 years. So for all of you with your luxury cars, watch out as this could catch you out and you will paying a lot more than normal!
They state that all of this new money coming from road tax will be put into building, developing and repairing roads across the UK. Not a penny of it will go anywhere other than road developments. Additionally, for new cars and motorbikes, it is rumoured that, for the first 4 years of driving, MOTs will not be needed (instead of three years which is currently in place now).
When you compare the amount of road developments in other countries with the UK, there is a big difference in new roads and repairs which shows how little work there has been on the UK roads. Just compare how many new roads are being built in France (over two and a half thousand miles of motorway in only 25 years) with Britain which has built around only three hundred miles. Introducing this new tax rule should help with this as, if they stay true to what they have stated, every single penny will be spent on new roads and developments.
As to how bad the news is financially, it's complicated as it all depends on the car you drive. Drivers of low emission vehicles will be hit with higher rates (with scarily high increases in some cases) while drivers of high emission cars might find their annual rate drops. That doesn't necessarily mean overall savings though because first year fees might rise significantly. Basically, check it out on an individual basis for any car you're thinking of buying.
A good thing to bear in mind is that this new rule will not affect cars that are already tax registered; any car that is registered before April 2017 will stick to what they already pay, meaning that for cars with low CO2 emissions, it will be beneficial to them to get their tax sorted and registered before April 2017.
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